Imagine yourself waking up to loud rumbling sounds as buildings nearby crash and collide killing others. You probably had just woken up at the moment -you had been sleeping, resting from the long day you just had. But little did you know you would be waking up into one of the deadliest earthquakes in Morocco’s history.
For some background information earthquakes are when two surfaces of the earth collide into each other the slip is known as a fault line. This creates shaking sounds and causes so much damage.
Earthquakes have existed for thousands of years and we experienced deadly ones even in the past decade. In 2007, Indonesia faced one of the largest earthquakes the world would ever encounter leaving 161 murdered. But those numbers don’t even match the one that happened just this weekend in Morocco.
Morocco has had some history of earthquakes over the past decades. The last one was in 2019, leaving no one injured or dead. They had some earthquakes here and there but the last deadly one that matches the closest to the one we saw this weekend happened in 1960, the earthquake was called Agadir and it left 12000-15000 dead and 12,000 injured.
Now that you have received some background information, we can discuss the events that occurred over this weekend that could affect the lives of families & and citizens living in Morocco forever.
The earthquake was confirmed to start around 11 p.m. on Friday. It is estimated that the epicenter was located on a High Atlas Mountain range that is just 44 miles away from a highly populated city called Marrakech–population (840,000+). It was reported that people who were in that area at that time heard loud sounds and crashing sounds coming from the south. The earthquake was also striking the ground pretty hard but what made the damage more drastic was that it was striking deeper than what most people are used to.
The earthquake left a massive effect as the death toll is still rising today (Tuesday, September 12, 2023) as it just reached 2900+ dead and 5000+ injured. It ruined just about anything in its path.
Unfortunately, the area that got hit the most which was closest to the mountain was more of a rural area; the buildings are made out of brick so the structures of most of these buildings could easily be destroyed. Most of the buildings did, resulting in thousands of citizens sleeping outside, leaving them vulnerable to rain or another earthquake.
But there’s another problem, food insecurity has been at a massive high since the earthquake hit. About 7.1 million people in the area do not have access to food. Which has raised many concerns about how the government would handle this.
If you have been on social media this past week you may have come across videos online of people sleeping outside with just what they were wearing before the earthquake. They don’t have blankets for most or proper sleeping conditions.
The government stepped in though by sending rescue teams, blood supplies, and food. They are also providing physical & and mental health treatments. But some say this isn’t enough that they need to provide more.
As of right now, the death toll is still rising, along with the need for proper care for all the people left homeless. The future is uncertain but we hope that they will eventually be able to help the ones struggling to survive this unexpected earthquake.
