Boujemaa Kouti still remembers the screams of his neighbors trapped under the rubble of their houses, calling for help that horrific night 63 years ago.
He was just 8 and asleep when a large earthquake struck Morocco in 1960, wiping out entire neighborhoods in the coastal city of Agadir, near the Atlas Mountains, and killing at least 12,000 people.
“I saw stars when I woke up,” Mr. Kouti said, and then he heard “people screaming ‘Save me’ — calling for their family.”
Mr. Kouti’s older brother died, and the Kouti family lived in tents for almost a year as Agadir was mostly rebuilt at a location nearby deemed safer.
Rubble was bulldozed and cleared, and vast amounts of concrete was poured as buildings with stricter seismic standards went up.
The Agadir Oufella, a 16th-century fortress partly damaged in the quake, was eventually restored, and a memorial was erected on top of a hill where many died. » | Aida Alami, Reporting from Agadir and Marrakesh, Morocco | Sunday, November 19, 2023
