AMIZMIZ, Morocco: An aftershock rattled Moroccans on Sunday as they mourned victims of the nation’s strongest earthquake in more than a century and toiled to rescue survivors while soldiers and aid workers raced to reach desperate mountain villages in ruins. The disaster killed more than 2,100 people — a number that is expected to rise.
The United Nations estimated that 300,000 people were affected by Friday night’s magnitude 6.8 quake and some Moroccans complained on social networks that the government wasn’t allowing more help from outside. International aid crews were prepared to deploy, but some grew frustrated waiting for the government to officially request their assistance.
“We know there is a great urgency to save people and dig under the remains of buildings,” said Arnaud Fraisse, founder of Rescuers Without Borders, who had a team stuck in Paris waiting for the green light. “There are people dying under the rubble, and we cannot do anything to save them.”
Help was slow to arrive in Amizmiz, where a whole chunk of the town of orange and red sandstone brick homes carved into a mountainside appeared to be missing. A mosque’s minaret had collapsed.
“It’s a catastrophe,’’ said villager Salah Ancheu, 28. “We don’t know what the future is. The aid remains insufficient.”
Residents swept the rubble off the main unpaved road into town and people cheered when trucks full of soldiers arrived. But they pleaded for more help.
“There aren’t ambulances, there aren’t police, at least for right now,” Ancheu said.
Those left homeless — or fearing more aftershocks — slept outside Saturday, in the streets of the ancient city of Marrakech or under makeshift canopies in Atlas Mountain towns like Moulay Brahim, among the hardest-hit. The worst destruction was in small, rural communities that are hard for rescuers to reach because the roads that snake up the mountainous terrain were covered by fallen rocks.
Those areas were shaken anew Sunday by a magnitude 3.9 aftershock, according to the US Geological Survey. It wasn’t immediately clear if it caused more damage or casualties, but it was likely strong enough to rattle nerves in areas where damage has left buildings unstable and residents feared aftershocks.
Friday’s earthquake toppled buildings not strong enough to withstand such a mighty temblor, trapping people in the rubble and sending others fleeing in terror. A total of 2,012 people were confirmed dead and at least 2,059 more people were injured — 1,404 of them critically, the Interior Ministry reported Saturday.
Flags were lowered across Morocco, as King Mohammed VI ordered three days of national mourning starting Sunday. The army mobilized specialized search and rescue teams, and the king ordered water, food rations and shelters to be provided to those who lost their homes.
He also called for mosques to hold prayers Sunday for the victims, many of whom were buried Saturday amid the frenzy of rescue work nearby.
But Morocco has not made an international appeal for help like Turkiye did in the hours following a massive quake earlier this year, according to aid groups.
Aid offers poured in from around the world and the UN said it had a team in Morocco coordinating international support. About 100 teams made up of a total of 3,500 rescuers are registered with a UN platform and ready to deploy in Morocco when asked, Rescuers Without Borders said. Germany had a team of more than 50 rescuers waiting near Cologne-Bonn Airport but sent them home, news agency dpa reported.
In a sign Morocco may be prepared to accept more assistance, a Spanish search and rescue team arrived in Marrakech and was headed to the rural Talat N’Yaaqoub, according to Spain’s Emergency Military Unit. Foreign Minister José Manuel Albares said in a radio interview that Moroccan authorities asked for help. Another rescue team from Nice, France, also was on its way.
In France, which has many ties to Morocco and said four of its citizens died in the quake, towns and cities have offered more than 2 million euros ($2.1 million) in aid. Popular performers are collecting donations.
The epicenter of Friday’s quake was near the town of Ighil in Al Haouz Province, about 70 kilometers (44 miles) south of Marrakech. The region is known for scenic villages and valleys tucked in the High Atlas Mountains.
Devastation gripped each town along the High Atlas’ steep and winding switchbacks, with homes folding in on themselves and people crying as boys and helmet-clad police carried the dead through the streets.
”I was asleep when the earthquake struck. I could not escape because the roof fell on me. I was trapped. I was saved by my neighbors who cleared the rubble with their bare hands,” said Fatna Bechar in Moulay Brahim. “Now, I am living with them in their house because mine was completely destroyed.”
There was little time for mourning as survivors tried to salvage anything from damaged homes.
Khadija Fairouje’s face was puffy from crying as she joined relatives and neighbors hauling possessions down rock-strewn streets. She had lost her daughter and three grandsons aged 4 to 11 when their home collapsed while they were sleeping less than 48 hours earlier.
“Nothing’s left. Everything fell,” said her sister, Hafida Fairouje.
Rescuers backed by soldiers and police searched for victims in collapsed homes in the remote town of Adassil, near the epicenter. Military vehicles brought in bulldozers and other equipment to clear roads of rocks that crumbled off mountainsides, the state news agency MAP reported. Ambulances took dozens of wounded from the village of Tikht, population 800, to Mohammed VI University Hospital in Marrakech.
In Marrakech, where authorities were assessing the damage, large chunks were missing from a crenelated roof, and warped metal, crumbled concrete and dust were all that remained of a building cordoned off by police tape.
Tourists and residents lined up to donate desperately needed blood. Jalila Guerina said she ran to help when she learned of the need because of her duty as a Moroccan citizen.
“I did not even think about it twice,” she told The Associated Press, “especially in the conditions where people are dying, especially at this moment when they are needing help, any help.”
In the market, stray cats clambered over piles of stones and wooden bars, but shoppers were scarce at stalls set up under parasols by food and souvenir vendors.
The quake had a preliminary magnitude of 6.8 when it hit at 11:11 p.m., lasting several seconds, the USGS said. A magnitude 4.9 aftershock hit 19 minutes later, it said. The collision of the African and Eurasian tectonic plates occurred at a relatively shallow depth, which makes a quake more dangerous.
It was the strongest earthquake to hit the North African country in more than 120 years, according to the USGS, which has records dating to 1900, but it was not the deadliest. In 1960, a magnitude 5.8 temblor struck near the Moroccan city of Agadir, killing at least 12,000. That quake prompted Morocco to change construction rules, but many buildings, especially rural homes, are not built to withstand such tremors.
In 2004, a magnitude 6.4 earthquake near the Mediterranean coastal city of Al Hoceima left more than 600 dead.
Friday’s quake was felt as far away as Portugal and Algeria, according to the Portuguese Institute for Sea and Atmosphere and Algeria’s Civil Defense agency.
Aftershock rattles Morocco as rescuers seek survivors from the earthquake that killed over 2,100
https://arab.news/8xhue
Aftershock rattles Morocco as rescuers seek survivors from the earthquake that killed over 2,100
- The United Nations estimated that 300,000 people were affected by Friday night’s magnitude 6.8 quake
- Some Moroccans complained on social networks that the government wasn’t allowing more help from outside
‘Protect our people’: Armed Syrian volunteers watch over Damascus
- Local committees have taken over some of the deserted checkpoints, with the authorities’ approval
- Committees had been set up to patrol neighborhoods to prevent crime until the police could take over
After Islamist-led militants ousted former president Bashar Assad in early December, thousands of soldiers, policemen and other security officials deserted their posts, leaving the door open to petty theft, looting and other crimes.
The new Syrian authorities now face the mammoth challenge of rebuilding state institutions shaped by the Assad family’s five-decade rule, including the army and security apparatuses that have all but collapsed.
In the meantime, Damascenes have jumped into action.
In the Old City, Fadi Raslan, 42, was among dozens of people cautiously watching the streets, his finger on the trigger of his gun.
“We have women and elderly people at home. We are trying to protect our people with this volunteer-based initiative,” he said.
“Syria needs us right now, we must stand together.”
Local committees have taken over some of the deserted checkpoints, with the authorities’ approval.
Hussam Yahya, 49, and his friends have been taking turns guarding their neighborhood, Shughur, inspecting vehicles.
“We came out to protect our neighborhoods, shops and public property as volunteers, without any compensation,” he said.
He said the new authorities, led by the Islamist Hayat Tahrir Al-Sham group, have backed their initiative, providing light arms and training.
Authorities also provided them with special “local committee” cards, valid for a year.
Police chief Ahmad Lattouf said the committees had been set up to patrol neighborhoods to prevent crime until the police could take over.
“There aren’t enough police officers at the moment, but training is ongoing to increase our numbers,” he said.
The Damascus committees begin their neighborhood watches at 22:00 (19:00 GMT) every night and end them at 06:00 (03:00 GMT) the next morning.
Further north, in the cities of Aleppo and Homs, ordinary residents have also taken up weapons to guard their districts with support from authorities, residents said.
The official page of the Damascus countryside area has published photos on Telegram showing young men it said were “volunteering” to protect their town and villages “under the supervision of the Military Operations Department and in coordination with General Security.”
It also said others were volunteering as traffic police.
A handful of police officers affiliated with the Salvation Government of the Idlib region, the militant bastion controlled by HTS before Assad’s fall, have also been deployed in Damascus.
Traffic policemen have been called from Idlib to help, while HTS gunmen are everywhere in the capital, especially in front of government buildings including the presidential palace and police headquarters.
The authorities have also begun allowing Syrians to apply to the police academy to fill its depleted ranks.
Syria’s new rulers have called on conscripts and soldiers to surrender their weapons at dedicated centers.
Since rising to power, HTS and its allies have launched security sweeps in major cities including Homs and Aleppo with the stated goal of rooting out “remnants of Assad’s militias.”
In the capital’s busy Bab Touma neighborhood, four local watchmen were checking people’s IDs and inspecting cars entering the district.
Fuad Farha said he founded the local committee that he now heads after offering his help to “establish security” alongside the HTS-affiliated security forces.
“We underwent a quick training, mainly teaching us how to assemble weapons and take them apart and to use rifles,” he said.
Residents said that the committees had been effective against burglars and thieves.
“We all need to bear responsibility for our neighborhood, our streets and our country,” Farha said.
“Only this way will we be able to rebuild our country.”
Macron says West must be cautious over new Syria rulers
PARIS: French President Emmanuel Macron said on Monday the West must not be naive about the new authorities in Syria after the ousting of Bashar Assad and promised France would not abandon Kurdish fighters.
“We must regard the regime change in Syria without naivety,” Macron said in a speech to French ambassadors after Islamist-led forces toppled Assad last month, adding France would not abandon “freedom fighters, like the Kurds” who are fighting extremist groups in Syria.
UN: Over 30 million in need of aid in war-torn Sudan
- Tens of thousands of people have been killed and more than eight million internally displaced
- Both the army and the RSF have been accused of using starvation as a weapon of war
PORT SUDAN, Sudan: More than 30 million people, over half of them children, are in need of aid in Sudan after twenty months of war, the United Nations said on Monday.
The UN has launched a $4.2 billion call for funds, targeting 20.9 million people across Sudan from a total of 30.4 million people it said are in need in what it called “an unprecedented humanitarian crisis.”
Sudan has been torn apart and pushed to the brink of famine by the war that erupted in April 2023 between the Sudanese army and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF).
Tens of thousands of people have been killed and more than eight million internally displaced, which, in addition to 2.7 million displaced before the war, has made Sudan the world’s largest internal displacement crisis.
A further 3.3 million people have fled across Sudan’s borders to escape the war, which means over a quarter of the country’s pre-war population, estimated at around 50 million, are now uprooted.
Famine has already been declared in five areas in Sudan and is expected to take hold of five more areas by May, with 8.1 million people currently on the brink of mass starvation.
Sudan’s army-aligned government has denied there is famine, while aid agencies complain that access is blocked by bureaucratic hurdles and ongoing violence.
Both the army and the RSF have been accused of using starvation as a weapon of war.
For much of the conflict, the UN has struggled to raise even a quarter of the funds it has targeted for its humanitarian response in the impoverished northeast African country.
Sudan has often been called the world’s “forgotten” war, overshadowed by conflicts in the Middle East and Ukraine despite the scale of the horrors inflicted upon civilians.
Jordanian FM discusses rebuilding Syria in Turkiye talks
DUBAI: The Jordanian Foreign Minister Ayman Safadi highlighted on Tuesday the need to help Syria regain its security, stability, and sovereignty during discussions in Turkiye.
Talks also focused on providing support to the Syrian people and addressing the challenge of rebuilding the war-torn country.
He underscored Jordan's firm stance against any aggression on Syria’s sovereignty, rejecting Israeli attacks on Syrian territory.
The minister also expressed solidarity with Turkey, supporting its rights in confronting the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK), emphasizing the importance of regional cooperation to ensure peace and stability.
Israel military says three projectiles fired from north Gaza
JERUSALEM: The Israeli military said it identified three projectiles fired from the northern Gaza Strip that crossed into Israel on Monday, the latest in a series of launches from the war-ravaged Palestinian territory.
“One projectile was intercepted by the IAF (air force), one fell in Sderot and another projectile fell in an open area. No injuries were reported,” the military said in a statement.
