Morocco: One year after earthquake, those rebuilding feel left behind

In the middle of the winding lanes that crisscross the mountainous roundabout (village) of Anbadour, stood a green metal door that contrasted with the beautiful dark stone facade that housed it.

In front of the door, an old man wearing a beige hat was trying to pick the lock with difficulty. With a creaking sound, the door finally opened to a stunning sight. Behind the door: emptiness. All that remained of Omar's house was a wall and this small door.

One meter below the ground, the beginnings of the foundations could be seen. To get there, the 80-year-old used his cane and the arm of a neighbor. He then showed architect Khalil Murad al-Ghilali the trenches he had dug to build his new home.

The village is located in the Chichaoua province, two hours drive from Marrakech. The village was slightly damaged by the earthquake that struck Morocco a year ago, on September 8, 2023, with a magnitude of 6.8 on the Richter scale.

Anbadour is located about thirty kilometers from the center of the disaster that left 3,500 dead, 6,000 injured, and 60,000 homes damaged, a third of which were completely destroyed.

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After finishing his review with the architect, Omar tried to drag himself out of the basement, revealing the faded and worn Adidas sweatpants he was wearing under his handsome brown djellaba. All the while, he was tightly clutching a colorful shopping bag containing the blueprints of his future home.

Then Omar insisted on taking us another hundred meters. Under the olive trees were three or four tents. This is where the old man and the rest of his family have been living since the earthquake.

Here, Khadija, one of his relatives, invited us to visit her temporary home.

Under the tarpaulin the air was stifling. It was late August when the temperature outside had reached about 40 degrees.

The smiling young woman, wearing a black scarf decorated with pink and red flowers, insisted on showing what was hidden under the mass of blankets scattered on the carpeted floor: a baby, barely four months old, covered to protect him from the flies that swarmed around him.

In Anbdour, Chichaoua province, Omar's family lives in tents made of tarpaulin and reeds (attached)

“Nowhere else has the post-earthquake reconstruction process taken less than four years,” Al-Ghailali told Middle East Eye. “Yet we were told that in one year, everything would be rebuilt. But that was impossible.”

In the village of Omar, residents whose homes were cracked by the recent earthquake began returning to their homes after the cracks were filled. Authorities tried to dissuade them from returning for security reasons and “excessive enthusiasm,” according to Ghilali.

After five months in the tents, they could no longer bear it.

“This winter, even if it didn’t rain fortunately, there were strong gusts of wind two weeks ago with rain, to the point that the tents were blown away,” a young man told Middle East Eye, showing several photos and videos saved on his smartphone to document his memories.

“This winter, fortunately, there was no rain, but two weeks ago there were strong gusts of wind accompanied by rain, which caused the tents to be blown away.”

– Earthquake victim

Those whose homes had collapsed or been demolished in order to be completely rebuilt were staying in the large guest house in the village or with their family members.

A few, like Omar and his family, still live in tents.

According to figures released by the government earlier this week, there are nearly 50,000 homes under construction or rehabilitation, and about 1,000 families have completed their work.

In other areas closer to the epicenter, most victims are still living in tents. Some plots of land have not yet been cleared, for no known reason.

The works also encountered more understandable problems. For example, when the trenches for the foundations were dug in the exact spot the architect had planned, they were not deep enough, says El-Ghilali.

Nearby, a young man showed Middle East Eye his pockmarked hands as the architect told him he had to keep digging to get a permit to build his slab.

inaccessibility and inflation

In the days following the earthquake, emergency aid poured in from across the Kingdom and from the Moroccan diaspora abroad. It was a wave of generosity that was welcomed by all.

The state also rushed to disburse financial assistance of 2,500 dirhams (about $255) per month to each family for one year, and this assistance is scheduled to end next month.

On the other hand, the system chosen for reconstruction has been severely criticized.

The state opted for supervised self-construction, and after a damage survey was conducted by the authorities, victims were classified according to whether their homes were completely or partially demolished to receive direct assistance of 140,000 dirhams (about $14,500) or 80,000 dirhams, paid in installments.

It was then left to the inhabitants of the area to organize the construction work, either themselves or by hired workers, according to the plans drawn up by the chosen architect.

But this poses a real challenge, given the lack of manpower and difficulties in getting equipment and building materials to the site, several residents told Middle East Eye.

In fact, since some villages are located on the mountainside and the houses can only be reached after several minutes of walking on narrow, dusty paths, the bricks can only be transported on donkeys, or at best by motorbike.

A young man takes his architect on a tour around the ruins of his home in Anbadour, an area known for its mud and stone buildings that blend into the landscape (attached)

Another obstacle is inflation, both in terms of building materials prices and daily wages for workers.

There were also administrative difficulties, for example due to lack of national identity cards or by mistake, some residents were not counted correctly, according to several field workers who spoke to Middle East Eye.

“There was a degree of injustice,” Mehdi Benabdeljalil, head of Amal Beladi, an NGO working in three affected villages, told Middle East Eye.

Several residents told Middle East Eye that they had not yet received the first payment, while their neighbours, who were in the same situation, had received the first payment.

This is the case of cousins ​​Idris and Abdel Salam, in a village consisting of a few houses in the town of Ait Bourd, in the Al Haouz province, located an hour and a half southeast of Marrakech, via paved and dirt roads.

The couple, dressed in galabiyas and baseball caps, took Middle East Eye to a very special place nearby, the ruins of their home: Nawala.

The idea was developed by architect Elie Moyal, who was inspired by the traditional huts characteristic of some Moroccan regions to design emergency housing units using local materials (wood, reeds, earth, etc.).

The idea was adopted with some modifications by Amal Baladi in the earthquake-hit area, where huts are built using mud, wood and reeds.

In the village of Ait Bord in the Al Haouz province, some families, with the help of an NGO, built a hut as temporary housing (Introduction)

As the head of the NGO explained his work to Middle East Eye, the men sitting around him watched his every word.

“The idea is to build a temporary home in about ten days that can last as long as necessary while waiting for the houses to be built,” Benabdeljalil said.

“The Nawala camp is earthquake-resistant, and thanks to the insulation it is less cold in winter and less hot in summer than tents,” he added.

His NGO has helped around 20 families build these homes, and around 30 more are due to be built by the end of the year, he told Middle East Eye.

“All-concrete” rebuild

The techniques used in the reconstruction are also controversial. The last 60 kilometres before reaching Anbadour are dotted with countless quarries and small cement factories.

Along the way, small piles of dozens of concrete blocks form the sides of the roads, destined for new home construction.

In places where houses built with traditional techniques and local materials such as earth and stone still prevail, there is a clear trend towards rebuilding using concrete.

This is a real environmental deviation, according to Al-Ghailali and other architects who have tried to alert the public to the “total concrete reconstruction.”

While stone or earthen buildings have proven to be stable, they are being destroyed to make way for cement bricks.

Khalil Murad Al-Ghailali, Architect

The brick buildings look like dimples on the yellow mountain that, centuries ago, was covered with earthen or stone buildings that blended perfectly into the environment.

Moreover, in the two High Atlas villages visited by Middle East Eye, it was easy to see that houses made of local materials withstood the earthquake better than those built of concrete (or worse, those built with a mix of the two in a completely loose way, for the upper floors).

But the evidence presented, for example, seems insufficient to persuade residents to choose the old methods. The desire to rebuild quickly, and the disdain for the old in favor of newer – or cheaper – methods, seem to have succeeded in defeating those old practices.

But Ghilali, who advocates traditional materials, says the costs can be equal. However, other architects claim that the old techniques are much more expensive.

Stone houses in Ait Bord withstood the earthquake (attached)

As he moved between the villages, Omar's architect found it difficult to hide his disgust.

“The authorities refused to rehabilitate the houses with natural materials or concrete, while in some areas rebuilding the existing structure was sufficient and allowed people to be housed more quickly,” Al-Ghailali told Middle East Eye.

According to him, the trend is to demolish homes completely in order to rebuild them completely from scratch, including when the structures are not completely destroyed.

The architect believes that the rehabilitation of existing buildings has not yet been verified, partly because of the wealth that the disaster represented for the cement industry.

Middle East Eye contacted Morocco’s Ministry of Development Planning and Housing as well as the Professional Association of Cement Manufacturers (APC) for comment, but had not received a response at the time of publication.

“After that, as the stone or earthen buildings proved to be stable, they were demolished to build cement brick buildings,” Al-Ghailali added.

Other architects told Middle East Eye that repairing cracked mud houses was relatively easy, unlike repairing concrete houses, which can be unsafe.

Al-Ghailali also believes that even if rebuilding using traditional techniques is more expensive, the financial aspect should not be enough of a barrier, as the government can mobilize more resources.

“Can the state invest money in a football stadium but not in reconstruction here?” he asked rhetorically, referring to the 5 billion dirham (about $500 million) stadium the kingdom is building in preparation for the 2030 World Cup, which it will host with Spain and Portugal.

In Morocco, the upcoming football event is on everyone's lips, much more than the earthquake and its repercussions.

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