Morocco: more than 140,000 people evacuated due to intense rains

More than 140,000 people have been evacuated in nearly a week in north-west Morocco, due to exceptional rainfall which led the authorities to place several provinces on meteorological alert, according to an updated report from the Ministry of the Interior on Thursday.

The rural province of Larache, about a hundred km south of Tangier (north), is among the areas most affected by bad weather. In this region, in Ksar El Kébir, residents, including children and the elderly, found themselves stranded on the roofs of their homes before being rescued by the royal gendarmerie, evacuated using small boats.

Heavy rain, thunderstorms with risk of hail and strong gusts of wind were again announced for Thursday and Friday across the country by the General Directorate of Meteorology (DGM).

“A total of 143,164 people” have been evacuated since last Friday “as part of preventive interventions aimed at protecting lives and guaranteeing the security of citizens,” said the Ministry of the Interior.

Disturbed water flow

In the province of Sidi Kacem, about 120 km south of Ksar el Kébir, more than 10,000 residents were displaced, sometimes by helicopter. Many roads were submerged and agricultural land flooded, including lemon fields. AFP images show residents moving with difficulty in areas covered in muddy water, sometimes using tractors or half-submerged two-wheelers.

Other evacuations took place in neighboring provinces located in the Loukkos and Gharb plains, at the mouth of the Loukkos and Sebou rivers on the Atlantic Ocean, among the largest in the country.

The high swells on the Atlantic in recent days have disrupted the flow of water from the two rivers, an official from the Ministry of Equipment explained to public channel 2M on Wednesday.

In mid-December, 37 people died in Safi, on the Atlantic coast, during flash floods and floods, the heaviest toll in the last decade for bad weather of this type in the country.

In Morocco, water supplies recorded over the last five months have exceeded the annual average of the last ten years, the Ministry of Water told AFP at the end of January, after seven consecutive years of serious drought in the country.