Thousands of homes were demolished and almost 3,000 people lost their lives in a terrible earthquake that struck Morocco on Friday. The United Nations said Morocco might request assistance “today or tomorrow” to help it recover and rebuild.
“We are expecting and hoping, but expecting from our discussions with the Moroccan authorities that the request for assistance will go out within today or tomorrow,” UN aid chief Martin Griffiths told reporters in Geneva.
Since the magnitude 6.8 earthquake struck last Friday, Morocco has permitted rescue teams from Spain, Britain, Qatar, and the United Arab Emirates to assist it; but, it has turned down proposals from a number of other countries, including the United States, France, and certain Middle Eastern nations.
“We are ready to work and we’re ready to provide support on coordination,” Griffiths said, adding that “the next phase is to provide aid to those survivors — shelter, food, medical supplies”.
“It is only in the recent day or so that in Morocco, the shift has been from finding survivors to helping survivors to survive. And that’s when aid is of the highest importance,” he added.
Morocco authorized urgent relief of 30,000 dirhams (almost $3,000) to impacted households on Thursday. The country also announced the beginning of an aid program to sustain and rehouse the residents of about 50,000 destroyed structures.
The International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC) anticipates that it would take “weeks, months, and years to be able to rebuild,” spokesperson Benoit Carpentier told reporters from Marrakesh.
“We were talking about rebuilding several of these villages… It’s hundreds and hundreds of villages that are scattered in the mountains,” he said.
