RABAT, Morocco: A powerful earthquake struck Morocco late Friday, damaging buildings in major cities and sending panicked people pouring into streets and alleyways from the capital Rabat to Marrakech, the county’s most visited tourist destination.
At least 296 people died and 153 were injured in an earthquake that struck Morocco on Friday, state TV said, citing the Ministry of the Interior. One official said many of those been killed were in hard-to-reach areas of the North African country.
The epicenter of Friday’s tremor was high in the Atlas Mountains roughly 70 kilometers (43.5 miles) south of Marrakech. It was also near Toubkal, the highest peak in North Africa and Oukaimeden, a popular Moroccan ski resort.
The USGS said the epicenter was 18 kilometers (11 miles) below the Earth’s surface, while Morocco’s seismic agency put it at 8 kilometers (5 miles) down.
The US Geological Survey said the quake had a preliminary magnitude of 6.8 when it hit at 11:11 p.m. (2211 GMT), with shaking that lasted several seconds. Morocco’s National Seismic Monitoring and Alert Network measured it at 7 on the Richter scale. The US agency reported a magnitudue-4.9 aftershock hit 19 minutes later.
Moroccans posted videos showing some buildings turned to rubble and parts of the famous red walls that surround the old city in historic Marrakech damaged. Tourists and others posted videos of people evacuating restaurants in the city as throbbing club music played.
The temblor sent debris flying into narrow alleyways and items tumbling off shelves, according to video posted on social media.
The earthquake was also felt in the coastal cities of Rabat, Casablanca and Essaouira.
“There’s not too much damage, more panic. We heard screams at the time of the tremor,” a resident of Essaouira, 200 km west of Marrakech, told AFP by telephone.
“People are in the squares, in the cafes, preferring to sleep outside. Pieces of facades have fallen.”
USGS’s PAGER system, which provides preliminary assessments on the impact of earthquakes, issued an orange alert for economic losses, estimating significant damage is likely, and a yellow alert for shaking-related fatalities, indicating some casualties are possible.
USGS said that “the population in this region lives in structures that are highly vulnerable to earthquake shaking.”
Variations in early measurements are common, although either reading would be Morocco’s strongest in years. Though earthquakes are relatively rare in North Africa, a magnitude 5.8 tremor struck near Agadir and caused thousands of deaths in 1960.
There were no immediate official reports of casualties.
Internet connectivity was disrupted in Marrakesh due to power cuts in the region, according to global Internet monitor NetBlocks.
Morocco experiences frequent earthquakes in its northern region due to its position between the African and Eurasian plates.
In 2004, at least 628 people were killed and 926 injured when a quake hit Al Hoceima in northeastern Morocco.
The 1980, the 7.3-magnitude El Asnam earthquake in neighboring Algeria was one of the largest and most destructive earthquakes in recent history. It killed 2,500 people and left at least 300,000 homeless.
