On Wednesday, the United States offered Morocco $1 million in humanitarian aid to deal with the catastrophe caused by the earthquake that shook southern Marrakesh on Friday, killing nearly 3,000 and injuring 5,500.
“These funds will help organizations on the ground provide food assistance, healthcare and shelter”Samantha Power, the head of the United States Agency for Development (USAID), said in a statement.
The official guarantees that her country has provided technical assistance to the Moroccan government to respond to the crisis and is ready to provide more support if Morocco requests it.
After the earthquake, Morocco accepted humanitarian aid from Spain, Britain, the United Arab Emirates and Qatar, although it did not rule out asking for support from other countries.
The USAID administrator expressed her “deepest condolences” to the Moroccan people for the devastation caused by the earthquake, while reaffirming the United States’ “commitment” to support the Moroccan executive’s “recovery efforts.”
The official also praised the “tremendous courage” of affected residents and first responders in the search for missing people and called on Americans to donate to accredited organizations there.
The earthquake that struck Morocco on September 8 caused extensive damage in the Marrakech region.
The Moroccan government’s latest preliminary balance shows almost 3,000 deaths, while the official number of injured has not stopped rising: it was already 5,500 on Wednesday morning.
The earthquake, whose epicenter was recorded in the town of Ighil, 63 kilometers southwest of the city of Marrakech, was felt in Portugal and Spain and reached a magnitude of 7.0 on the Richter scale, according to the National Institute of Geophysics of Marrakech. . The United States Geological Survey recorded a magnitude of 6.8.
This earthquake is the deadliest in Morocco since the earthquake that devastated Agadir, on the country’s west coast, on February 29, 1960, killing between 12,000 and 15,000, a third of the city’s population.
Source: DN
