2023-09-13 19:45:00
DISPATCH — Five days after the magnitude 7 earthquake that violently struck Morocco, local authorities have counted more than 2,900 deaths and deployed rescuers are losing hope of finding other survivors in the ruins. The country has still not accepted aid from France.
The earthquake took place during the night from Friday to Saturday, in a region of the High Atlas, southwest of the tourist city of Marrakech (center). The world experiences about one earthquake per month like this, but often in the oceans. “This earthquake is probably close to the largest earthquakes that we can imagine,” underlines seismologist Jérôme Vergne for actu.fr. As reported by AFP, it devastated many homes in mountainous areas and injured some 5,530 people. Since the one that destroyed Agadir (nearly 15,000 dead) on February 29, 1960, Morocco had not experienced one so destructive.
The world moved to help, but depending on the relations maintained with this or that country, Morocco did not systematically accept outstretched hands. The French aid proposal, for example, is still left unresolved. “It is obviously up to His Majesty the King and the government of Morocco, in a fully sovereign manner, to organize international aid and therefore we are at the disposal of their sovereign choice,” indicated Emmanuel Macron, wishing to put an end to the “controversies which have no reason to exist”.
Moroccan authorities have requested several other foreign countries, such as Spain, Britain, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates, to send search and rescue teams.
At the same time, the Red Cross launched a fundraising appeal for around 100 million euros to support relief operations, after having released one million Swiss francs from its Emergency Fund to support the activities of the Crescent -Moroccan red.
On site, AFP reports that solidarity between residents is essential: vans are filled with boxes, their roofs covered with mattresses, and villagers load aid trucks.
The Moroccan army, for its part, set up field hospitals to treat the wounded in isolated areas. Finally, the head of the Moroccan government, Aziz Akhannouch, assured Monday that citizens who had lost their housing would receive compensation.
With the possible arrival of rain, many survivors fear that the tent camps and makeshift shelters will not be enough, deploring that “the authorities don’t tell us anything about this.”
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