Morocco earthquake: six months ago

On September 8, 2023, a 6.8 magnitude earthquake struck Morocco. The epicenter of the earthquake was about 80 kilometers southwest of Marrakesh in the High Atlas Mountains. Just under 3,000 people died, and more than six million people were affected through loss of life or injury, or the destruction of their homes, schools and villages.

Last week, six months after the earthquake, I traveled through the worst-hit area. My two-day trip was via the 30km Tizi-en-Test pass heading north from Taroudant to Marrakesh. The top of the pass is located at an altitude of 2093 metres. We made the trip slowly over two days to bring some much needed business to the area.

Isolated and difficult to reach villages

Tizi-en-Test was built between 1926 and 1932 by French colonial engineers to meet their needs to control the region and open a road through the mountains. It is an amazing achievement but is now neglected. Today, the highway passes through the High Atlas Mountains, and only locals or those who want to see the mountains in all their stunning majesty are tempted by this difficult journey. It's a challenging trail at the best of times and not for the faint of heart (I'm faint of heart and spent part of the journey with my eyes closed and clenched).

The road climbs and winds with rolling drops on one side and plunging cliffs on the other. It consists of a dirt track, remnants of the airport runway remaining from French times, and a few stretches of resurfaced road. It is rarely more than one vehicle wide. Even before the earthquake, the area was weather sensitive, with mudslides, avalanches, snow and fog occurring in higher areas.

The earthquake caused a large portion of the mountainside to fall into valleys and ravines, causing it to fall on cars and homes and blocking this narrow road through which all emergency services and aid had to pass.

Unstable rocks continue to fall, and bulldozers are constantly working to clear the road, pushing huge boulders and piles of dirt to the side, further reducing the width of the road. The occasional small stone walls and aluminum bars on the steeper sections, which served as barriers to the plunge to the bottom of the ravines and ravines, are now rubble and dust or hanging, still attached to parts of the road, above the cliff edges.

Some sections of the road had to be rebuilt over gullies and streams so emergency vehicles could cross, and an army camp is still stationed on the Marrakesh side.

Although some villages are scattered along the road, most are located within a few kilometers of it, along narrow dirt tracks, often inaccessible without donkeys or four-wheel drive vehicles. Many of these tracks have also been blocked. Tanzirt, for example, is a small village hidden from view and nestled behind a mountain gully. It caused the death of 22 people and injured many more. Several days passed before outside help could reach many of these mountain villages, and people were trapped under the rubble of their homes and died.

Photo by authorDestroyed villages

Looking up the side of the mountain, we could see the remains of destroyed villages, painted walls exposed, and roofs collapsing inward, destroying everything underneath. The houses were piles of red mud bricks, dust, and the rubble of wooden beams.

Sometimes it seemed that a more massive modern house had withstood earthquake and after earthquakes, but close by, cracks could be seen in the walls, and in one village we could see the tower of the mosque had been separated from the main part of the building.

Some of what remains of people's homes and lives have been saved, but piles of furniture and bedding have yet to be removed from the spot where bulldozers brought rescue services in. Few people here have cars, and the few who were here at that time are still buried under rocks and debris.

Photo by the author: Displacement of about 350 thousand people

According to the Red Cross, about 350,000 people have been temporarily “sheltered” in the Tizi-en-Test region. Along the way, hillsides have been leveled and dug up for tents and mobile cabins. Most people live in tents lined with plastic pebbles, tarpaulins and carpets.

There are some Red Crescent tents and other disaster relief tents, and now some mobile cabins, which are better able to withstand the dirt and weather. But it seems that these things are arriving only slowly. It is hot in the middle of the day and very cold at night. The temperature was high at 31 degrees Celsius and as low as 4 degrees over the two days.

Some families have set up shelters just outside their homes, along the road or down the valley in their village. Earthquakes continue with a magnitude ranging from 2.2 to 2.8, at a rate of one earthquake per month, and being next to a weak building poses a great risk.

Most villages now have a temporary school and mosque, and people are trying to do the work they were doing before the earthquake. They tend to the fields and animals, open a tent café, or sell fruit and vegetables from a few boxes on the side of the road. We bought a drink from a tent from a young man who ran a small shop and café and looked down at his 'cabin' which fell to its end on the rocks below.

Rebuilding after the earthquake

Earthquake victims need more than just help rebuilding. There are organizations, including the Red Crescent, supporting local communities in their mental, emotional and social recovery. The Moroccan government has allocated $11.7 billion for reconstruction over the next five years, but it appears that reconstruction has not yet begun.

Families build their homes generation after generation, brick by brick, room by room, as finances allow and the family grows. In many villages, men are working away to support their families, and rebuilding homes will be difficult, even with the government allocating $14,000 per family. Residents of the area fear that they will be forgotten. The tent villages and ruins of homes are a reminder of the devastation and the scale of the task ahead.

The February update on US aid can be found here.

Other relief organizations:

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