New earthquake aftershock hits Morocco

Volunteers watch as a digger moves rubble of collapsed houses in Tafeghaghte, 60 kilometers (37 miles) southwest of Marrakesh, Sept. 10, 2023, two days after a devastating 6.8-magnitude earthquake struck the country. [AFP]

"When I felt the earth shaking beneath my feet and the house leaning, I rushed to get my kids out. But my neighbors couldn't," Mohamed Azaw told the Reuters news agency. "Unfortunately, no one was found alive in that family. The father and son were found dead and they are still looking for the mother and the daughter."

Rescuers stood atop the pancaked floors of one building in Amizmiz, bits of carpet and furniture protruding from the rubble. A long queue formed outside the only open shop as people sought supplies. Underlining the challenges facing rescuers, fallen boulders blocked a road from Amizmiz to a nearby village.

Nearly all the houses in the area of Asni, about 40 kilometers south of Marrakech, were damaged, and villagers were preparing to spend the night outside. Food was in short supply as roofs had collapsed on kitchens, said villager Mohamed Ouhammo.

Street camera footage in Marrakech showed the moment the earth began to shake, as men suddenly looked around and jumped up, and others ran for shelter into an alleyway and then fled as dust and debris tumbled around them.

The quake was recorded at 18.5 kilometers, a relatively shallow depth and typically more destructive than deeper quakes of the same magnitude. It was Morocco's deadliest earthquake since 1960, when a quake was estimated to have killed at least 12,000 people, according to the U.S. Geological Survey.

Mohammad Kashani is an associate professor of structural and earthquake engineering at the University of Southampton in Britain. Kashani compared scenes of the aftermath to images from Turkey, where a massive earthquake in February left more than 50,000 people dead.

"The area is full of old and historical buildings, which are mainly masonry. The collapsed reinforced concrete structures that I saw ... were either old or substandard," Kashani said.