The human toll is increasing. Morocco is still counting its deaths after the violent earthquake which struck a region southwest of the tourist city of Marrakech on Friday September 8. The latest provisional death toll from this terrible earthquake rose to 2,682 deaths, the Interior Ministry announced on Monday. A previous report provided on Sunday reported 2,497 deaths. In a press release, the Interior Ministry also announced a new toll of 2,501 injured.
Moroccan rescuers, supported by foreign teams, are redoubling their efforts on Monday to find possible survivors and provide assistance to hundreds of homeless people, more than 48 hours after the earthquake which devastated entire villages. On Sunday evening, Morocco announced that it had accepted offers from four countries to send search and rescue teams: Spain, Britain, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates. According to AFP correspondents, Spanish rescuers were present in two localities hit by the earthquake south of Marrakech, Talat Nyaqoub and Amizmiz.
In Talat Nyaqoub, twelve ambulances, several dozen 4x4s from the army and the gendarmerie were deployed. Around a hundred Moroccan rescuers are briefed by their superiors before starting search operations in the village. Not far away, a team of 30 Spanish firefighters, a doctor, a nurse and two technicians are coordinating with Moroccan authorities to begin excavations. A helicopter flies over the village.
“The big difficulty is in remote and difficult to access areas like here, but the injured are airlifted,” team leader Annika Coll told AFP. “It’s difficult to say if the chances of finding survivors are diminishing because, for example, in Turkey (hit by a very strong earthquake in February) we managed to find a woman alive after six and a half days. There is always hope,” she added. “It is also important to find the dead bodies because families need to know and grieve. »
70 km further north, another team of 48 men from the Spanish Military Emergency Unit (UME) has set up camp at the entrance to the small town of Amizmiz since Sunday evening. “We are waiting for a meeting with Moroccan civil protection to determine exactly where we can deploy,” Albert Vasquez, UME communications officer, told AFP. “It is very difficult to find people alive after three days, but in Turkey we found some after seven days so there is always hope,” he added.
In several localities, members of the security forces continue to help dig graves for the victims, while others set up yellow tents for victims who have lost their homes.
In Marrakech, on Avenue Mohammed VI, dozens of people still spent the night outside, lying on the central reservation or at the foot of their cars parked in parking lots. In the disaster area, rescue workers, volunteers and members of the armed forces are working on their side to find survivors and extract bodies from the rubble, particularly in villages in the province of Al-Haouz, epicenter of the earthquake. The quake sparked a global outpouring of solidarity and several countries offered to help, but “a lack of coordination could be counterproductive”, Rabat said on Sunday.
“Morocco is a sovereign country and it is up to it to organize relief,” reacted French Foreign Minister Catherine Colonna after the kingdom did not respond at this stage to her offer of assistance . She announced aid of 5 million euros to NGOs currently “on site” in Morocco.
In Tikht, a small village devastated by the quake, a minaret and a handful of unpainted clay houses stand tall amid an apocalyptic landscape. “Life is over here,” laments Mohssin Aksum, 33, a resident. “The village is dead. »
