«It was terrifying, we were finishing dinner when we felt the earthquake, the ceiling of the restaurant collapsed, stones and debris fell, we saw people running outside and we moved away towards the garden. We decided to sleep on the sun loungers by the pool, with blankets and towels. It was cold, but there was no question of going back to the rooms. There must have been at least two hundred of us.” Julia PerowneCEO of a large London travel PR agency, experienced the terrible earthquake in Morocco with a magnitude of 7.0 and with an epicenter south of Marrakech.
She is not in Marrakech on holiday, but she is one of the professionals who had just arrived in Marrakech like us Vanity Fair and other journalists from every country for the Pure Life & Experiencea global event that every September brings together operators, experts and media from the world of travel in Morocco, and the hotel where we are located, La Mamounia is one of the most historic and luxurious in Marrakech.
It is outside the Medina, the ancient walled area of alleys and bazaars, where last night’s damage was most severe, and where most tourists stay in a thousand riads of all levels and sizes, but during last night’s quake here too a long crack has opened, clear and vertical along all four floors of the facade of the red building dated 1920. «After the arrival of an engineer and a team called by the hotel to verify safety, at 5 in the morning we were allowed to return to the rooms», concludes Perowne.
Debris in an alley in the Medina of Marrakech on Saturday 9 September.
Will Oakley is also here for Pure (whose organization is currently looking for ways to use the people who have arrived here to help through an NGO, raise funds or make reserved rooms available to the homeless). Will, who is the general manager of Jumby Bay, a private island resort in Antigua, is also here for the Pure. He slept outside, and describes the moment of the explosion.
«First came the sound, like a big boom, then the shaking, the earth shaking. It happened at exactly 11 past 11, a surreal moment because there was total silence, the crickets and every nocturnal insect stopped. Total silence, and the sky was filled in a second with birds flying away, fleeing upwards. It didn’t last more than 30 seconds, we started running towards the pool because it was an open space and we saw that a large wave was hitting it. We sat down on the beds and half an hour later we felt another tremor. They brought us water and blankets and worked until two. At a certain point the crickets all together started singing again and we understood that below, in the Earth, calm had returned. In this season Marrakech is full of tourists, the Easyjet flight at dawn on Saturday 9th landed regularly, the Captain said in flight about the earthquake and the Italian holidaymakers were left uncertain what to do, but when they arrived at the airport everything was as usual, no information, no movement of military aid planes or anything else, at least at first sight everything as always. Tourists went to their riads in the Medina and outside. Becca Williams, also English, was having dinner outdoors in a restaurant, the Comptoir Dana, everyone was running and there was a dangerous crowd, people were in panic, risking being crushed. Katharine says that today everything in the city is open as if nothing had happened, even the souk is teeming with shops, people and sellers as always. The city tries to pretend nothing happened, it doesn’t want to stop.
View more
Where will you sleep tonight? I ask the witnesses of the earthquake, so powerful, we now know, that it was felt as far away as Portugal. “Actually, we don’t sleep peacefully,” says Will. Maybe we’ll go back outdoors? While the death toll as we write in the area around the epicenter, in the Atlas Mountains, has risen to 820, almost 700 injured, over 200 of them serious, the injured and displaced cannot be counted. Catherine, on the other hand, another Pure-ist on the move, was staying in the alleys of the Medina, in a small riad. «Almost everyone fled last night, too dangerous, the walls were crumbling and every open space was full of people gathering. It’s so sad, she says as she searches for a flight home to London, “So many people are homeless, we have to find a way to help.” Everyone glued to their phones, but also many unaware people sunbathing and buying spices. But everywhere hovers the great doubt not expressed out of fear, silent: will there be another shock? With eyes scanning the sky and listening for crickets, Marrakech remains waiting.
