Seismic regulations: where is Morocco?

On the set of the 19/20 news, the guests of Julien Benedetto, the seismologist Pascal Bernard and Ismaël Hassouneh, doctor and volunteer of the Secours populaire in France, discussed the anti-seismic policy implemented by Morocco. "The anti-seismic regulations are quite recent. Everything that was built before the 2000s is not at all anti-seismic. There is no underestimation (of the risk). No one was asking the question. We knew it was seismic, but no more," explains the specialist working at the Institute of Geophysics of the Globe of Paris. "The aftershocks can be as high as the main shock [6.8 on the Richter scale, editor’s note]," he specifies, stressing the need to identify "the faults and the fault system", because "it is the neighbors who are now charged".

"On average, construction to anti-seismic standards can cost 20% more than normal construction," Ismaël Hassouneh, a doctor and volunteer for the Secours populaire in France, explains to Julien Benedetto in response to a question about the construction of anti-seismic housing.

At least 2,122 people died in the worst earthquake Morocco has known since 1960, according to the new report released on Saturday evening by the Ministry of the Interior. The number of injured is 2,421, many of them in very serious condition. 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, adding that the public authorities are still mobilized to accelerate the rescue and evacuation operations of the injured.