Al Haouz region As soon as we left the city of Marrakech and took the road leading to the Al Haouz region, we were met on the horizon by a black cloudscape covering the distant Atlas Mountains, as if reflecting the feelings of the inhabitants of these mountains coinciding with the first anniversary of what was described as the earthquake of the century that struck these regions violently on this day a year ago.
About 5 hours passed while we were in the arms of this dangerous, narrow, harsh mountain road, and we were dividing our eyes between the mountains, watching their terrifying stones that might surprise you by falling at any moment, and between that deep bottom there at the bottom of this terrifying mountain range.
“We lived the same scene last year, but this year the situation is much more dangerous,” my companion explains, as we watch together the floods sweeping away stones, trees, and everything else in their path.
Now more dangerous
Last year, anyone visiting the Al-Haouz region faced the risk of aftershocks and the possibility of huge rocks falling from the tops of the mountains. This year, to these dangers, torrential rains have been adding to the flooding in the region for days, causing some nearby areas to flood.
Communications came warning of the dangers of these rains, and recommending taking all precautions, most notably postponing travel to the depths of Al-Hawz until a day when nature is smiling and calm.
But no way, today marks a full year since that night when the earth shook like never before, and the magnitude of the earthquake reached 7.2 on the Richter scale, and its epicenter was the village of Ighil – in the farthest part of the Al Haouz region, southwest of Marrakech – at a depth of 8 kilometers, and we must live this sad memory with the good people spread across these towering mountains.
Yes, our goal is to reach the eye of the earthquake, Ighil, which Google Maps tells us this time – as we are at the entrance to Marrakech – is 114 kilometers away via what the application describes as the “fastest route” and that it will take us two hours and 52 minutes to travel there!
But last year’s experience taught us that Google’s accuracy – at least in such remote areas – barely goes beyond a phone screen.
As we expected, we spent more than 5 hours on that scary road, and we still didn’t reach Ighil. We passed through all the towns and villages that welcomed us a year ago, Tahnaout, Isni, Mariga, Ouirgane, Imkdal, Ijoukak, and those douars with different names and images, and the ghost of Ighil did not appear yet.
Stormy rain
The weather was calm when we entered the Al-Hawz area, then the clouds quickly began to pile up one on top of the other and become increasingly black. After about an hour, the first drops of rain began to fall from the sky, cold and light, then with the passage of time they turned into violent stormy rain.
All fears were focused on the rocks sliding down from the surrounding mountains, and there were many of them that day. The torrents below foretell heavy rains in other areas, and here they are violently driving everything in their path, not caring about the looks of fear in their staring, frightened eyes.
Unlike this day last year, we are now almost alone on this terrifying mountain road, which – with these stormy rains and widespread floods – forces you to remain silent out of respect, and the heart is filled with prayers that God will be kind to the passengers of this car that looks like a lost point as it travels between the towering mountains in this difficult atmosphere.
Whenever we arrive at a town, we ask its people, and they answer our questions in Moroccan dialect, with a beautiful Berber accent, and they end their conversation with one piece of advice: Avoid the mountain on this day, the stones are falling and you could be stranded in one of these mountains at any moment.
No to hidden longing
“We didn’t come all this way to go back empty-handed,” my driver friend and I agree, as if we’ve been blessed with some courage from the recent heavy rains.
We continued on our way towards the eye of the earthquake, Ighil, watching our phone screen and GPS app for when we could connect to the internet, as the internet often goes down high in the mountains at the moments we need it most.
We reached the almost deserted town of Ijoukak (about 95 km southwest of Marrakech), and some of the locals there told us that we were only about 20 km away from Ighil, high up in the mountain!
On a paved road, 20 kilometers is nothing, on a regular road it is a little bit, but on such a harsh mountain road it means a lot.
After about 5 kilometers of careful, calm driving, we reached the town of Talat Nyaqoub – which was one of the areas most affected by the earthquake of the century, as it was almost completely destroyed – and we were surprised by one of the locals telling us that we were in the middle of the town center!
A year ago, the houses and shops were ruined and half-demolished, lining both sides of the road in this exact spot, but now the horizon stretches out, and the eye looks straight at the trees and mountains here and there.
The rubble has been collected and thrown away, and the center of Talat Ya’aqoub is now empty, surrounded by carts of simple citizens selling cups of coffee and whatever simple consumer goods are available.
Frequent advice
But our goal, Ighil, is still about 15 kilometers away, according to our interlocutors. Every time we reach a simple roundabout (village), we ask about the distance and the conditions of the road, and the advice is the same and repeated: avoid the mountain in this angry atmosphere.
Our reserve of courage was still sufficient, to the point that we insisted on continuing on the road, but with monitoring the situation and being prepared to make the decision to return at any moment, and the lightening of the rain from time to time added a new reserve to our reservoir of courage.
In Douar Amzouzit, about 8 kilometers from the eye of the earthquake, we came across Si Mohamed, one of the residents of the douar, on our way to a nearby place. He volunteered to accompany us to Douar Amrzgane, which is the closest point to Ighil, after he had strongly warned us against going to the eye of the earthquake in this stormy weather. We are not from the region, and we do not know the features of the anger of these towering mountains in such rainy weather.
We had barely covered two kilometers when the rain became more violent, and a thick layer of fog covered the car window, covering the road ahead of us, and making our courage level reach rock bottom. We were satisfied with Ighil returning after a long resistance.
Come back.. we came back
The weather suddenly turned dark, and the rain streams were moving horizontally violently due to the strong winds, and it seemed to us that small torrents were pouring down from the tops of the surrounding mountain, so the one who volunteered to accompany us issued something like an order to return, and our decision to accept was faster than the order we heard due to the horror of what we saw, and our faces were gloomy because we were unable to reach our goal.
The eye of the earthquake is there, a few kilometers away, and if it weren’t for these mountains, it would have been in our sight, and here we are, returning without experiencing the details of this sad memory with what remains of its good people.
The rain did not let up on our way back, but rather increased in strength and violence, and the road was filled with small and large stones that we had not seen during our journey back, and from time to time small torrents would appear before us advancing violently after finding an outlet among the mountain passes, trying to cut off this difficult path for us.
As we approached Talat Ni’aqoub, we were surprised by a huge bulldozer suddenly opening the road that the floods had cut off and filled with dirt and stones within a few moments. This was the road that had been passable when we arrived at this place.
In this town that seemed to be emptied of its inhabitants, Mr. Hassan alerted us that the rear wheel of the car had been damaged by small sharp stones falling from the mountain. Fortunately, there was a simple tire repair shop close to us, so the simple worker, Radwan, extracted 3 small jagged stones from the wheel, which had pounced on them like small, ferocious beasts when we passed over them.
Nobody forgets
Fate was kind to us when we met Si Hassan Batalat N’Yaqoub, a resident of Ighil, and he told us the details of the terror experienced by the remaining residents there at dawn when they were surprised by a torrential rain that made them flee from their tents to the outside. That strong thunderstorm brought back to them the memory of the violent earthquake that struck a year ago.
“No one can forget what happened on September 8. The earthquake penetrated our hearts and our entire being, and the storm only played lightly and gracefully on a chord that is still a bleeding wound,” Si Hassan explains, adding that the mountain residents are still feeling light earthquakes, the last of which was two days ago.
This is consistent with the statements of the Director of the National Institute of Geophysics, Nasser Jabour, to local media outlets that more than 10,000 aftershocks were recorded during the past months, and that they are expected to continue for the coming months, and that, thanks to divine grace, their intensity is mild.
Si Hassan told us that he had not been able to reach his family in Ighil for ten days, and here he was in Talat N’Yaqoub sitting with some comrades discussing their lives, which had passed in exciting details over the course of a whole year.
As for how they spent this year, and why he still talks about tents and difficult living conditions, that is another story that deserves to be told on its own.
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