Earthquake: Moroccan firefighters, experts in the field

"They are very well equipped and they have drawn on the experience of what they have been through, including the 1960 earthquake (the magnitude 5.7 earthquake that had razed Agadir, editor’s note). They were prepared for what happened," assesses Chief Warrant Officer Pierron in an interview with the newspaper La Montagne. The French firefighter had met the Moroccan firefighters in 2017 as part of a training program. "When I was in Casablanca, there was actually also a team of firefighters training to receive an international certification for natural disaster relief," he recalls. "The Moroccan firefighters know what they’re doing and they’re equipped with modern equipment: acoustic detection, inflatable cushions, dogs or construction equipment." He will recall that "it is in the hours that follow that we must deploy a maximum of resources to have a chance of finding survivors".

At the time, the Creusois had taught the Moroccan and Djiboutian officers the art of training their own firefighters. "They were future heads of training groups and the mission was to create schools, he says. Thirteen schools, in the case of Morocco because, before that, all their firefighters were trained in Casablanca. Today, this network exists and it has brought the level of training of the Moroccans very close to ours, avoiding them having to travel hundreds of kilometers." According to his explanations, their network is regional. "It’s not like in France where there’s always a fire station nearby, over there, there’s sometimes only one barracks hundreds of kilometers away."

The Moroccan firefighters had also been specialized due to the regions with very marked differences. "In the desert, it’s not very useful to train for forest fires but around Marrakech where the seismic risks are high, search and rescue is taught to firefighters. Specializing the men more, that was the whole purpose of these schools," Jean-Luc Pierron also explains.

According to the new report released on Saturday evening by the Ministry of the Interior, the powerful earthquake has killed 2,122 people and injured 2,421. In total, 1,293 people lost their lives in the province of Al Haouz, and 452 in the province of Taroudant, both located south of Marrakech, details the department of Abdelouafi Laftit in a press release.