Big scare in Morocco. Some Internet users living in the Marrakech-Safi region reported feeling tremors early Thursday morning, less than a week after the violent earthquake that left nearly 3,000 dead in the High Atlas region. According to the site Myearthquakealerts.comthe earth shook around 5:50 a.m. with a magnitude of 4.6 on the Richter scale.
An aftershock was also felt Wednesday evening in Imi N’Tala, 70 km southwest of Marrakech, where a rock fell. One person was slightly injured and taken to hospital, according to an AFP team on site.
Expected responses
Aftershocks after a large earthquake are common and, in the case of Morocco, expected. Classically these aftershocks tend to decrease in intensity. It’s a bit like a big rubber band that’s been pulled and a piece of it has torn. In the case of Turkey and Syria, where an earthquake caused more than 50,000 victims last February, a second earthquake was triggered causing around thirty buildings to collapse.
In disaster-stricken regions of Morocco, rescuers have stepped up their efforts to help devastated mountain villages, but hopes of finding survivors are dwindling six days after the disaster.