On 8 September 2023 at about 11:00 p.m. local time, a magnitude 6.8 earthquake struck the High Atlas Mountains of Morocco. The epicentre was approximately 70 kilometres south of Marrakesh. The disaster claimed over 3,000 lives, many of them in poor rural communities where houses are built in masonry and timber.
The area around the epicentre saw entire villages levelled. In the immediate aftermath of the disaster, the Red Cross estimated that 600,000 people were directly affected by the earthquake, with 380,000 of these left homeless. A huge international relief effort was launched. Large earthquakes are rare in this mountainous region of Morocco. Most seismic activity takes place in the north of the country along the Mediterranean coast, which lies close to the boundary between the African and Eurasian tectonic plates. The Red Cross also reported that some 530 schools were damaged, affecting the education of more than 100,000 children.
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