2023-09-09 16:00:37
“We first thought it was a plane passing a few meters from the roof! » During the night from Friday to Saturday, shortly after 11 p.m. (local time), Donia, 38, and her husband were awakened on the first floor of their house in Marrakech by a “deafening” noise. “It took us a few seconds to understand that it was not coming from the sky, but from the ground,” remembers this young woman, who works in communications. My husband had experienced an earthquake, but much less powerful, in Casablanca a few years ago. It was he who finally understood what was happening. »
The two parents rush into the bedroom of the children, aged 5 and 7, and the whole family runs to take refuge on the ground floor, in a corner of the garden, “far from the walls”. “When we went to get the mattresses we usually use for deckchairs, we realized that there was water everywhere. It was that of the swimming pool which had overflowed and had spread all around. »
Donia, her husband and the two children are waiting, huddled together in the dark. “The house is located in a residence, a quarter of an hour from downtown Marrakech. You could hear the guards talking to each other, but you couldn’t see anything because the electricity had been cut off. We didn’t even realize the damage to the house. »
They finally make the decision to spend the whole night outside in the garden, for fear of an aftershock. “This morning, we realized that many inhabitants of the city had done like us, testifies Donia again. Some have slept on the ground in the street, for fear of further tremors, or that a building that has been badly affected will collapse. »
“We are very lucky, it’s only material damage”
It was only at sunrise that the family realized the extent of the damage caused by the earthquake. “The floors and walls are covered in cracks, sometimes several centimeters wide, and entire shelves have fallen to the ground,” she describes. However, the house had only just been finished a few months ago. It is a modern construction, on one floor, with anti-seismic standards. This is where we really measure the violence of the tremors. » The foreman who had monitored the work already came by on Saturday morning to check whether the foundations and load-bearing walls had not been affected.
“We are very lucky,” says Donia. No one was injured and it was only property damage. In other areas, notably in what we call douars (often small hamlets in North Africa, located on the outskirts of towns or in the countryside, and made up of more basic dwellings), the damage is much more considerable. , with many injured or dead. It is all these people, and their families, that we are thinking about now. The media also broadcast calls for blood donations over and over again. »
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