Moroccan rescue workers, backed by foreign teams, are continuing a race against time on Monday to find survivors and provide assistance to hundreds of homeless people whose homes have been razed to the ground, more than 48 hours after the earthquake that struck more than 2100 dead.
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Morocco announced Sunday evening that it had responded favorably, “at this stage”, to offers from four countries “to send search and rescue teams”: Spain, Great Britain, Qatar and the Arab Emirates. United.
These teams have contacted their counterparts in Morocco to coordinate their efforts, the Interior Ministry said in a statement.
Spain said it had already sent 86 rescuers to Morocco accompanied by dogs specialized in the search for victims, while a Qatari humanitarian flight took off on Sunday evening from Al-Udeid air base, in the suburbs of Doha, according to an AFP journalist.
AFP
Other offers could be accepted in the future “if needs evolve,” the ministry added.
Many countries, from France to the United States, via Israel, had offered their help to Morocco after the devastating earthquake which left 2,122 dead and 2,421 injured, according to a latest report published on Sunday by the Ministry of the Interior.
While awaiting the deployment of foreign rescue teams on the ground, the Moroccan authorities have begun to erect tents in the High Atlas, where villages have been completely destroyed by the earthquake.
Rescuers, 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 south of the tourist city of Marrakech. , in the center of the kingdom.
AFP
In Tikht, a small village near Adassil, a minaret and a handful of unpainted clay houses stand amid an apocalyptic landscape.
“Life is over here,” laments Mohssin Aksum, 33, a resident. “The village is dead.”
Not far from there, Moroccan security forces are digging graves for the victims, while others are setting up yellow tents for quake survivors who have been left homeless.
The earthquake that occurred late Friday evening, of magnitude 7 according to the Moroccan Center for Scientific and Technical Research (6.8 according to the American seismological service), is the most powerful to have ever been measured in Morocco.
Faced with the scale of the destruction, solidarity is organized in Marrakech where many residents have rushed to hospitals to donate blood for the victims.
“We are in the process of collecting food to help the areas affected by the earthquake,” Ibrahim Nachit, a member of the Draw Smile association, told AFP, which also plans to send a “medical caravan » to the most affected areas.
“I think that the food supplies collected today should be able to support at least 100 families for a week,” added Abdeltif Razouki, vice-president of the association.
AFP
The International Red Cross has warned of the importance of future humanitarian aid. The “24 to 48 hours (are) critical” and there will be needs for “months or even years.”
In addition to human losses and destroyed villages, the kingdom’s architectural heritage was affected by the earthquake. In Marrakech, on the 700 hectares of the medina, the old city, the damage is impressive in places.
The 12th century ramparts that surround the imperial city, founded around 1070 by the Almoravid dynasty, are partly disfigured.
“We can already say that they (the damage) are much greater than we expected. We noted significant cracks on the minaret of the Koutoubia, the most emblematic structure, but also the almost complete destruction of the minaret of the Kharbouch mosque” on Jemaa el-Fna square, notes Eric Falt, regional director of the Office of the UNESCO for the Maghreb.
This earthquake is the deadliest in Morocco since the one that destroyed Agadir, on the west coast of the country, on February 29, 1960. Nearly 15,000 people, or a third of the city’s population, died.