After the earthquake in Morocco, it took around eight hours before assistance arrived in the hamlet of Ardouz, one of many little mountain communities whose isolation is both alluring and horribly dangerous.
Nearly a week after the nation’s deadliest earthquake in decades, some of the settlements perched in the High Atlas are still inaccessible by road, though the authorities have not specified how many.
However, the one-lane gravel road to Ardouz, which had a population of 200 before the accident, is still passable. It travels past dusty apple trees and a dry riverbed before coming to a dead stop at a set of steeply ascending mountain slopes.
The epicenter of the earthquake that killed over 2,900 people and left hundreds of thousands homeless is located less than 10 kilometers (six miles) further south, beyond those steep hills.
The agony of that evening, which left Ardouz with almost 20 fatalities, is seen on the face of 28-year-old Abdelakim Housaini.
On September 8, when their house fell, he lost his mother and grandparents. He then had to endure the lengthy but less painful wait for aid for the injured.
“The nearest hospital is an hour away and doesn’t offer many treatments,” he said.
“We couldn’t transport or even care for the injured. We kept them warm and waited for rescuers to arrive, which took about eight hours,” said Housaini, who works as a cook in Casablanca and was home visiting his family when the quake struck.
While farming is a major employer and a means of life in many of the tiny Atlas villages, a lack of employment opportunities forces many residents to seek employment in urban areas.
The region is not wealthy; the nearby Al Haouz province reported a per capita GDP of $2,000 while the Marrakesh province reported a per capita GDP of about $2,800.
But there are other factors at play that affect how the natives live.
“Everyone in this place was quite content. They had quiet, straightforward lives, according to local Mohamed Alayout, 62.
But things have been quite difficult since the disaster, continued the day laborer who hurried back from Casablanca to assist within hours of the earthquake.
