catastrophe
Aftershock shakes parts of Morocco
A man digs a grave to bury the body of an earthquake victim in the village of Ouargane, near Marrakesh. photo
© Mosa’ab Elshamy/AP
Late Friday night’s earthquake was the worst in Morocco in decades. Now there were new shocks.
After the devastating earthquake in There was an aftershock in Morocco on Sunday morning. The country was shaken by a new quake around 9 a.m. local time, Nasser Jabour, head of a department at the National Institute of Geophysics, told the Moroccan news site Hespress.
The US Earthquake Observatory USGS recorded a magnitude of 3.9. According to Hespress, the epicenter of the aftershock was about 80 kilometers southwest of Marrakesh, similar to the first quake. It is not known whether there were further victims as a result.
The quake on late Friday evening was the worst in Morocco in decades. It had a magnitude of 6.8. King Mohammed VI ordered three days of national mourning. At least 2,000 people died. Hundreds of people were still missing on Sunday, the Arabic-language news channel Al-Arabiya reported. However, the helpers only make headway in the sometimes remote mountainous regions.
According to the World Health Organization (WHO), more than 300,000 people in Marrakech and surrounding areas have been affected by the accident.