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.
There was no immediate word on whether there were any injuries or deaths. Government officials had made no comment on the extent of the quake’s impact as of early Saturday.
Moroccans posted videos showing some buildings turned to rubble and dust, 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 club music played.
Reports on damage and any casualties often take time to filter in after many earthquakes, particularly those that hit in the middle of the night.
Rather than return to the buildings, men, women and children stayed out in the streets worried about aftershocks and other reverberations that could cause their homes to sway.
The U.S. Geological Survey said the quake had a preliminary magnitude of 6.8 when it hit at 11:11 p.m. local time, with shaking that lasted several seconds. Morocco’s National Seismic Monitoring and Alert Network measured it at 7 on the Richter scale. The U.S. agency reported a magnitudue-4.9 aftershock hit 19 minutes later.
The epicenter of Friday’s tremor was high in the Atlas Mountains roughly 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 11 miles below the Earth’s surface, while Morocco’s seismic agency put it at 5 miles down.
Variations in early measurements are common, although either reading would be Morocco’s strongest in years.
In 2004, at least 628 people were killed and 926 injured when a quake hit Al Hoceima in northeastern Morocco, according to the Agence France-Presse. In 1980, the 7.3-magnitude El Asnam earthquake in neighboring Algeria was one of the largest and most destructive earthquakes in recent history, AFP reported. It killed 2,500 people and left at least 300,000 homeless.
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