2023-09-10 17:43:06
Khaled points to the houses on the hill opposite. “From here, ours looks to be intact. But it’s a mirage, only two walls remain standing. Inside, everything is gone. » Behind him, makeshift tents were erected to accommodate those who lost their homes, in the shadow of a mosque cracked on all sides. Children play among the stones fallen from the minaret. The mothers, grouped around a large pot, prepare lunch.
In the epicenter of the earthquake
Suddenly, eyes turn towards the courtyard of the town’s small health center. Silently, a crowd emerges from the portal. She carries two bodies to the cemetery. ” I know them. It is a mother and her son, Abdessamad,” describes Khaled, who managed to get out of his house in time with his wife and daughter. “My brother is not. Her 3-year-old daughter was sleeping upstairs in her house. The ceiling collapsed on her. My brother cleared the rubble with his own hands, with superhuman strength. He took out his daughter’s body himself,” raconte Khaled.
In the small town of Moulay Brahim, in the mountainous region of Haouz, around thirty lifeless bodies were found after the terrible earthquake on Friday evening. “The shaking only lasted a few seconds. A few seconds to change our lives forever”, Judge Khaled.
According to Sunday’s report from the Moroccan Interior Ministry, the earthquake caused the death of 2,012 people and injured 1,404 others. With a magnitude of 7 on the Richter scale, it is the most powerful ever recorded in Morocco. It was in Haouz, where the epicenter of the earthquake was, that the greatest number of victims was recorded.
Waiting for official help
“We are left to our own devices!” “, Khadija is alarmed, sheltered under one of the tents. A few ambulances are busy, but few signs of the State in the city. “We need real tents, food, medicine. Even to find the survivors, we had to fend for ourselves at first,” Pursuit Khadija.
According to Khaled, rescuers have moved to more isolated villages, where the damage could be even more dramatic. Not far from there, members of a private Italian civil protection organization are busy. “We came to see the needs. We must act on two axes: rescuing people under the rubble and ensuring the primary needs of survivors. I am worried, because the Moroccan state does not seem to have prepared a strategy for such a catastrophe,” deplores Giovan Battista Cicchetti Marchegiani, who arrived the night before. He hopes that the authorities will quickly provide accreditations to rescuers coming from abroad to help their Moroccan counterparts. “The next few hours will be crucial,” he insists.
Spontaneous solidarity
Around the tents, basic necessities flow. “Fortunately, the generosity of Moroccans is limitless. We have received a lot, while the State is almost absent”, assures a resident who lost her roof. Moulay Brahim, relatively accessible from Marrakech, was able to receive help. But, in isolated villages, in the mountains, where the road is sometimes cut, many residents are alone, despite the emergency plan announced by the king.
In the meantime, solidarity is being organized. On the road linking Moulay Brahim to Marrakech, collection points for basic necessities are multiplying, while the ballet of ambulances does not stop. Residents of Marrakech come to drop off flour, oil, diapers, water… even though their city was also hit hard by the earthquake. So far 14 deaths have been recorded there, but the destruction is numerous.
Marrakech under the rubble
On Friday evening, the minaret of the city’s famous mosque, the Koutoubia, swayed dangerously, when the tremor terrified millions of Moroccans at precisely 11:13 p.m. In videos posted on social networks, thick dust escapes from the minaret and hundreds of birds flee it, while tourists and residents escape at full speed. The 800-year-old minaret finally held.
Nearby, on the Jamaa El Fna square, another minaret was not so lucky. Its upper part collapsed, revealing the internal structure of the building. In the center of the square, “refugees” who had lost their homes built a makeshift house for themselves, spreading out carpets, watching over the few bags they were able to save from their house. “I still don’t understand how we got through it. It’s a miracle “, says a mother living on the square. His house didn’t hold up. “God decided that we would stay alive. So we will live! “, she concludes
The streets of the famous medina, popular with tourists, are littered with stones from collapsed buildings. Usually vibrant, the city has lost its energy. Many businesses have lowered the curtain. And the place is less crowded than usual. Yet life goes on. Some shows are still held on Jamaa El Fna square. Shops have opened.
“These kinds of events belong to God”
Despite the tragedy, and while emergency services are working to extract survivors from the rubble, many Moroccans are showing fatalism, or resilience. “Every day God brings a trial. It’s one more,” notes Zhor. Not far from her, a parking attendant, Abdelhadi, is busy very close to the splendid city walls. “My house in Marrakech partly collapsed. I live on the street! And a whole part of my family is in the hospital”, he describes. His working day, however, resembles so many others. You have to feed your family well. And he’ll be back tonight, maybe for a few more nights, on the streets.
“Why don’t I open it?” “, says Mohamed, a suitcase seller. “These kinds of events belong to God. It could happen today, tomorrow, any day”, he assures. The building above him is intact. But just 20 meters away, an entire facade spilled onto the ground.
Many tourists also decided to stay, despite the circumstances. Christine and Isabelle, two French tourists, in their fifties, are staying in “a kind of little oasis”30 km from Marrakech. “The first sound we heard was as if an airplane had passed over the villa. Then the shaking started, to the point that the water from the swimming pool invaded our room,” they describe. Closer to the epicentre, they observed the damage in the surrounding villages. “The cook at the villa lost her house, tell the two French women. And, in the nearest village, three people died. »
#seconds #changed #lives