How the 2023 Al Haouz earthquake provides a painful backdrop for Morocco's hosting of the Africa Cup of Nations

Residents of the village of Asni, located on the slopes of the Atlas Mountains, describe the snow-covered view as “paradise.” Above them is North Africa's highest peak, Mount Toubkal, which looks up there but is actually two to three days away by the nearest road – getting there is itself an arduous journey of several hours, usually requiring a 4×4 to get around dry valleys and navigate sharp turns.

The russet valley leading to Toubkal is a vast, beautiful land, its silence only amplified by the sudden sounds that break it: a farmer gathering branches to make a fire, the barking of dogs, or the cry of a muezzin from a mosque. Not long ago, a unique sense of place was also characterized by the sight of Berber communities on the mountainside, with their low, flat-roofed houses and rough-textured dry mud walls.

These are gone now. In September 2023, the heaviest earthquake to hit the Al Haouz region destroyed 95 percent of buildings in Asni, which subsequently became the center of a broader relief response due to its proximity to Marrakesh, an hour or so to the north.

In all, the quake killed 2,960 people and injured 5,674, but a much larger earthquake earlier in the year on the Turkey-Syria border drew greater international attention due to the level of devastation that included the loss of more than 50,000 people.

On the face of it, given the logistical challenges of getting the materials to the places where they were needed most, it is impressive that Asni has been rebuilt since then, literally brick by brick. However, the majority of the new construction on these homes remains exposed, and the gray color of the blocks does not blend in with the natural colors of the surrounding terrain.

There are still visible scars in Asni, which now looks from a distance like a mining town, albeit without the jobs that come with the industry. However, it remains a place of activity, with tagines cooked over charcoal stoves and men in sarongs using the midweek market to try to sell copper bracelets.

(Simon Hughes/The Athletic)

One of them approaches me, and although he refuses to give his name at any point during the discussion that then lasts for more than an hour, “because what happened here is everyone's business, not me,” he is willing to share his story in wonderful English backed by communication with aid workers, detailing how he feels about the 2025 Africa Cup of Nations being held in Morocco while the struggle in parts of the country like Asni remains as brutal as this.

The village is a harsh and largely inhospitable geographic midpoint, but it would be a mistake to conclude that the threat of nature was an everyday feature of mountain life. Although an earthquake struck Agadir, 250 kilometers (about 160 miles) away, in 1960, killing about 15,000 people, no one in Asni knew what was happening when the world around them began to collapse after 11 p.m. on September 8, 2023.

Initially, there were two movements, with the ground shaking in one direction before rising sharply back in the other direction. The lights went out, and a huge rock crashed into the village from the top of the mountain above it. It sounded like a bomb had gone off, and if you were out drinking tea, you would be safer than if you had already gone to sleep.

Dawn was still five or six hours away, and many people were running into the streets without warm clothes. They slept, if they could, in the cold, huddled together against the elements. Only at sunrise did they realize how bad things were. Many buildings were damaged beyond repair, and the ones still standing, upon closer inspection, had massive cracks.

Asni was a place where nothing had changed in generations. Now, suddenly, everything was different. Her sense of poeticism was shattered. For more than a year, its main square resembled a war zone, transformed into a camp, where clotheslines served as makeshift fences.

Collapsed buildings following the September 2023 earthquake (Nathan Lin/Bloomberg via Getty Images)

However, it was worse in other parts of the Atlas Mountains, where some places were inaccessible for months, a day away from any recognizable track.

It was only thanks to Sarah Barden's determination that her father David's body was returned home so quickly, after a hotel roof collapsed on him in an aftershock near the remote Tizi-en-Test pass. David, 71, was a retired Liverpool fan on the bike trip. Having arrived in Morocco 48 hours earlier, he was the only Briton to lose his life in the earthquake – a reminder that the disaster had consequences for people from other parts of the world.

In the beginning, the hardest part, according to my anonymous informal mentor for Asni, was influencing young people who were suddenly left without an education. With schools destroyed, the only solution was to enroll them elsewhere. Less than a week after the earthquake, buses were taking them to stay in Marrakesh, where they had everything they needed, except for their families, whom they only saw during the Eid holiday.

Our guide says that one of his daughters was having nightmares that another earthquake would happen, and in Marrakesh, she had no one to comfort her. This still bothers him.

There is evidence of the 2025 Africa Cup of Nations on the road to Asni. In a town called Tahanaout, there is a five-a-side football field with artificial turf on which are banners and flags of each of the 24 competing countries. Children running with the ball and having fun. However, since the earthquake, the focus on public spending has increased in Morocco, with protesters taking to the streets last year, drawing attention to the country's stadium construction at a time when other services are being neglected.

People in Asni don't always feel part of the same argument. It is noteworthy that Morocco hosted the African Cup of Nations before the earthquake occurred, and since that day, the village has received support from the government.

“Football can help Morocco's image,” says Morshedi, who believes the tournament will encourage more visitors to return to the Atlas Mountains, which had a budding holiday industry before the quake. For example, businessman Richard Branson opened a luxury resort not far from Asni. But since the disaster, there has been an “earthquake fear” that has made tourists reluctant to return, while hotel owners have been reluctant to discuss the challenges they face because they do not want to turn away more people.

The earthquake victims were not neglected financially. The Moroccan government has allocated support, with aid reaching around £12,000 ($16,000 at the current rate) to rebuild a house and around £7,000 for damaged homes, in addition to £200 monthly assistance per family. Considering that the average agricultural worker earns £7.50 ($10) a day, these are huge sums.

(Simon Hughes/The Athletic)

But the relief did not last long, and as soon as it was gone, it was gone. In Asni, poor families say wealthier families with greater connections are served first, leaving those most in need of help at the back of the line.

Berber communities preferred to rebuild in mud, given that their ancient properties had stood for hundreds of years without any problems before such an extreme event. They say brick makes homes too cold to live in during the winter and unbearably hot in the summer. Some of them remain hollow, as families abandon Asni for new lives in cities as far away as Casablanca (288 km/about 200 mi).

One family clung to what was left of their mud house, dividing their time between a concrete outbuilding that was not destroyed, and a nearby container that was meant to be a temporary solution to their problems. The outbuilding is located next to a palm tree that was brought from the Sahara desert 30 years ago and is still about to grow dates. The space in front of him used to be the kitchen, but now it was covered in trash, being swept away by the winds coming from the mountain.

The site is like an open wound, reminding you that Asni is still a place of trauma.

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