‘A dark Saturday’: Montreal’s Moroccan community in shock after tragic earthquake
Montreal is home to Canada’s largest Moroccan population and on Saturday, many community members awoke to the tragic news that the country’s central region was struck overnight by its largest recorded earthquake in over a century.
Recent reports from Morocco’s interior minister indicate that the death toll has now reached 1,037, as reported by the BBC. The epicentre of the 6.8 magnitude quake was in the country’s High Atlas Mountains region, which is about 71km southwest of the popular tourism destination of Marrakech.
On an average weekend morning, the La Amistad coffee shop in Montreal would be playing soccer games, but on Saturday it was all about the news.
“It’s a dark Saturday,” said Mouslih Yassine, a Moroccan Montrealer who works at the shop.
He said the earthquake is all his clients are talking about.
“Since last night at 7 p.m., everyone is talking about those who are injured, those who died. It really is sad, we simply tried to call all our family members yesterday to see if they are healthy and okay,” he said.
Yassine’s family is in Casablanca, the largest city in the North African country, where the impacts of the earthquake were also felt. He said that after the earthquake, his family slept on the street for fear of a second one.
“They were shocked, it was surprising to them,” Yassine said. “We’re hoping it stops here. We really are hoping.”
The convulsions were felt all the way into the capital city of Rabat, which is located about 350 kilometres north of the epicentre.
Noureddene Mosbah, who has family in Marrakech, said some people woke up with “nothing” in the impacted areas.
“They have no help,” Mosbah said, “It’s very, very terrible.”
He says his friend told him on the phone this morning that he
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