In the medina of Marrakech: piles of rubble, open shops and tourists
As soon as you pass under one of the arches marking the entrance to the medina, adjoining the royal palace, cracks of several meters in the buildings and piles of rubble on the ground bear witness to the severity of the earthquake which shook Morocco. A few ambulances and police sirens sounded this Saturday afternoon but the traffic was ordinary.
You have to step over a pile of rubble two meters high and zigzag between fallen electrical wires to access the riad. Luckily, it didn’t collapse, unlike other small buildings around. Some neighbors look tired and worried, observing the damage in their street from their doorsteps.
Several landslides make access to the small steep streets of the medina inaccessible. In one of the souks leading to the tinsmiths’ square, one of the shopkeepers alerts passers-by, his finger pointing towards a wooden roof which threatens to collapse and a section of which has already fallen, leaving a pile of rubble on the ground: we must Raze the walls on the right side to avoid getting trapped under another landslide.
In the square, dozens of Moroccans, men, women and children, were still lying on the ground on blankets, in the shadow of the arches which encircle it, next to a section of a collapsed building. They undoubtedly spent the night there, like thousands of other Moroccans who went looking for a secure place to sleep: outside the medina and its streets lined with mud houses built on several floors, some of which threatened to collapse. collapse, in a square or on the edge of major thoroughfares without too many buildings around. Some had even pitched their tent on the arteries of the city. Rumor has it since the earthquake that another tremor is expected, so many have fled the historic heart of the city.
Further on, in front of the entrance to the tourist Bahia Palace, still heaps of rubble, between which motorbikes and pedestrians slalom. Next door, the Artisanal Exhibition shop threatens to collapse. All that remains is the brown tiled sign, topped by a balcony which seems to be in balance. For how long ? In front, a tourist guide seems to continue to go about his business, organizing his Saturday lunchtime tour as if nothing had happened. “That’s the damage from last night”he says to the few tourists who follow him, pointing to the rubble piling up on the ground, just in front of the now dilapidated entrance to the palace.
In the medina, this Saturday noon, the shops were mostly open and tourists continued to stroll through the alleys, without, it seems, realizing the seriousness of this catastrophe, which was unprecedented in Marrakech. An ice cream vendor continued to roam the old town, looking for customers. To the right, to the left, in the small hidden streets, heaps of earth and bitumen. How many are still buried under this rubble?
