At least 44 Kiwis are known to be in Morocco amid a severe 6.8-magnitude earthquake that has already claimed the lives of over 2000, with the death toll continuing to climb.
None of the New Zealanders are known to be injured and have yet to claim any consular assistance, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade reported.
“At this stage, we have not received a request for international assistance,” a spokesperson told the Herald.
“Officials are monitoring the humanitarian impacts of the earthquake and assessing possible ways that Aotearoa New Zealand could support the response if requested.”
According to the Interior Ministry of Morocco, there were 2059 injuries overall, with 1404 of those being life-threatening.
People fled their houses in fear and shock as a result of the earthquake, which was the largest to hit the North African nation in 120 years.
The quake brought down walls made from stone and masonry, covering whole communities with rubble. The devastation gripped each town along the High Atlas’ steep and winding switchbacks in similar ways: homes folding in on themselves and mothers and fathers crying as boys and helmet-clad police officers carried the dead through the streets.
Herald travel writer Sarah Pollok was on a six-storey rooftop when the deadly quake hit.
“One moment, the five of us were enjoying a drink at 11pm, celebrating the end of a fantastic seven-day trip around Morocco. The next, the world began to rock violently around me,” she wrote.
“Hours later, people would ask whether, as a Kiwi, I was used to earthquakes. As an Aucklander, I’d tell them that the only quakes I’d felt were the kind where you said, ‘Wait… was that an earthquake?’ This time, there was absolutely no doubt, although some said they’d feared it was a bomb.”
She said the quake lasted less than a minute, but “long enough to play out the worst-case scenario in sickening detail”.
“I think, ‘I might actually die, and there’s nothing I can do’. The revelation sat like a brick in my stomach,” Pollok said.
“I always assumed, in a moment like this, I’d think of my family, but they don’t cross my mind until later. Instead, I think of God and wonder what the hell I should pray.”
Remote villages like those in the drought-stricken Ouargane Valley were largely cut off from the world when they lost electricity and cellphone service. By midday, people were outside mourning neighbours, surveying the damage on their camera phones and telling one another: “May God save us.”
Mountain guide Hamid Idsalah, 72, claimed that while many people were still alive, there wasn’t much hope for the future. That was true both in the near term — when his kitchen’s remains were reduced to dust — and in the long term, when he and many others lacked the resources to recover.
“I can’t reconstruct my home. I don’t know what I’ll do. Still, I’m alive, so I’ll wait,” he said as he walked through the desert oasis town overlooking red rock hills, packs of goats and a glistening salt lake.
The US Geological Survey said the quake had a preliminary magnitude of 6.8 when it hit at 11.11pm local time, with shaking that lasted several seconds.
The US agency reported a magnitude 4.9 aftershock hit 19 minutes later. The collision of the African and Eurasian tectonic plates occurred at a relatively shallow depth, which makes a quake more dangerous.
Earthquakes are relatively rare in North Africa. Lahcen Mhanni, head of the Seismic Monitoring and Warning Department at the National Institute of Geophysics, told 2M TV the earthquake was the strongest ever recorded in the region.
Yesterday’s quake was felt as far away as Portugal and Algeria, according to the Portuguese Institute for Sea and Atmosphere and Algeria’s Civil Defence agency, which oversees emergency response.
- Additional reporting by AP
Rachel Maher is an Auckland-based reporter who covers breaking news. She has worked for the Herald since 2022.