‘The streets were jammed’: fear and confusion after Morocco earthquake

Amid shock and devastation that jolted people in towns and cities for miles around the epicentre of a powerful earthquake in Morocco, people across the country described paralysing fear of further aftershocks and widespread confusion.

“For the first few seconds, you don’t know what’s happening. My wife called out to me and obviously we both jumped for our daughter. My wife picked up the baby and we ran outside but we weren’t sure what we were meant to do,” said Bode Shonibare, a British-Nigerian banker visiting his wife’s family in a northern district of Marrakech, the major city closest to the epicentre.

The earthquake struck shortly after 11pm local time, sending stone buildings and pieces of a towering minaret tumbling in central Marrakech and causing widespread panic far from the rural town of Ighil in the Al Haouz province, 44 miles south of Marrakech.

Once Shonibare, his wife and their daughter, who is just a few weeks old, reached the street, he described a scene of “absolute chaos”.

People seek safety outside in Rabat. Photograph: Jalal Morchidi/EPA

“Everyone ran outside, people were in shock, crying as they held their babies in their hands. The streets were jammed with people. Everyone was terrified to go back into their houses as they just didn’t know if that was the end or if it might continue,” he said.

“We stood outside for another hour or two trying to figure out what had happened. There were fire trucks and ambulances zooming past us, it was all so chaotic. Then after 40 minutes everyone just sat on the pavement in the street just kind of waiting. We didn’t know what was happening.”

Images showed widespread destruction across Marrakech, a Unesco world heritage site where newer apartment complexes on the edge of the sprawling city border a network of alleyways shaded by historic and ornate buildings.

The earthquake, its magnitude estimated at 6.8, sent stone slabs tumbling to the ground, creating piles of rubble in the streets as terrified people fled and spent the night on the pavement and in squares, afraid to return to their homes.

As Saturday dawned, Shonibare described how people rushed to check on their neighbours amid confusion and fear about whether to remain outdoors or shelter from potential aftershocks and the soaring early September temperatures.

“There have been reports of aftershocks, and everyone is still on high alert,” he said. “No one really knows what to do. On one hand it feels like we should be inside, but on the other, maybe we should go back out and sit in the park.

The minaret of a mosque stands behind damaged houses following the earthquake in Moulay Brahim. Photograph: Fadel Senna/AFP/Getty

“It’s hard to get a sense of how things are being managed. So far we’ve been seeing police vans, ambulances and fire trucks going to the centre. It seems they’re doing the best they can, but I don’t know if anyone fully knows the extent of the damage – that’s the main problem.

“But people have really been checking in on their neighbours. The community is really trying to do what it can to take care of one another.”

Sociologist Amro Ali, who lives in the northern port city of Casablanca, almost 270 miles from Ighil, described how the force of the quake jolted his home. “My wife identified what was happening. As she has a little more experience with earthquakes, she ran and hid under the table, so I did the same. I also went to shut off the gas. Of course, it was frightening. The one reassuring part was that nothing was falling, but still it was completely disorienting,” he said.

People gather on the streets in Marrakech on Saturday. Photograph: @wmpoelenburg/X/Reuters

“Then we opened the front doors and everyone was running out trying to evacuate, people were shouting and screaming. Everything was mayhem, people ran out in whatever clothes they were wearing and went down to the street. Then they began to talk about aftershocks.”

By the following day, Ali described a sense of eerie calm amid growing concern for the situation in remote villages. “These are the ones likely to be worst affected because of the lower-quality construction materials used and also the slow response of the emergency services to make it to these rugged areas,” he said.

In the capital, Rabat, more than 315 miles from the epicentre, development worker Loubna Rais described how she believed she was about to die in her home, and was still processing the shock of the sudden and violent tremors well into the next day.

As soon as the tremors ended, Rais was fearful about the destruction closer to the epicentre, which is in a remote area within the Atlas mountain range.

“The majority of the people who are going to be hit the hardest are those in the mountain areas, in rural areas, people who already have very little, those who do not have access to basic services.

“I’m hoping that everything will be done to help those who need it; the first 48 hours are crucial. We can still save people. But it’s just devastating. It’s heart-wrenching to think that there are all these people out there looking for their loved ones with very little to work with.”

Rais was up late working from bed in her fourth-floor apartment when she felt her apartment begin to shake.

“I just kept waiting for it to stop and it didn’t stop, I was very scared,” she said. “Quite frankly, that’s when I realised we are not educated about these dangers and what to do when this happens. I gathered my cats and we hid under this huge wooden desk that my dad had made me when I was a teenager. Because that was my only source of hope at that moment. It was scary. I started hearing people screaming outside.

“People were looking to see which other buildings could collapse, basically. I only had a little charge on my phone, I couldn’t reach my parents, my family, my friends, I just started panicking. It passed – but then we started reading about how bad it was in other parts of the country.”

Morocco experienced an earthquake of magnitude 5.8 in the coastal city of Agadir in 1960, which killed a third of the city’s population, an estimated 15,000 people. In 2004, a 6.3-magnitude earthquake struck the town of Al Hoceima on Morocco’s northern coastline, killing more than 600 people and making thousands homeless.

Despite the unexpected force of Saturday’s earthquake, many began to ask whether Morocco’s proximity to fault lines and history of earthquakes meant the state could have done more to prepare residents for a disaster of this scale, especially in remote villages.

Morocco earthquake: streets reduced to rubble in Marrakech region – video

“Right after the end of the first set of tremors, there’s an immediate sense of relief that nothing was destroyed near you. But then immediately, you think of others, those in secluded areas, in poor conditions. I started looking for information, but there was none, which added a little to the anxiety of it all. I turned to social media, and that’s where I found all the videos, the calls for help and for blood donations,” said Rais.

The death toll climbed rapidly, amid mounting concern about how rescue workers might reach remote communities in the Atlas mountains.

“This is devastating,” said Rais. “People are calling for help, they are desperate, they are asking the authorities to send proper assistance, ambulances, rescuers. People are trying to pull their own children from under the rubble. You can already see that it was those who have the least, those most marginalised, those most isolated, that suffered the most in this tragedy.”