Morocco earthquake killed young boy as family sat at dinner table
By Ahmed Eljechtimi
TAFEGHAGHTE, Morocco (Reuters) — Hamid ben Henna had just asked his young son Marouane to fetch a knife to cut a melon for the family's evening meal when Morocco's earthquake hit on Friday night.
With the weekend beginning, they had been enjoying a lamb and vegetable tagine stew and Marouane had been telling his father what materials he would need for the coming school year.
«That's when it struck,» Ben Henna said. The room began to shake, the lights went out and rubble started falling from the ceiling of their traditional house in a remote village of the High Atlas (NYSE:ATCO) mountains.
The earthquake was Morocco's most powerful since at least 1900 and it killed more than 2,000 people, mostly in small mountain villages like Tafeghaghte where the Ben Henna family live.
Ben Henna and his other son, Mouad, staggered out of the open door into the alleyway as their house began to collapse. They managed to free his wife Amina and small daughter Meryem. But as the dust settled they saw that Marouane had not made it.
The eight-year-old had run further into the house and was lying under a meter of rubble.
His little body was only recovered the next day, after Ben Henna's brothers arrived by car from Casablanca, five hours away, to help lift the rubble.
Marouane, described by his father as an enthusiastic boy who loved school, was buried on Saturday morning.
DESTITUTION
The family is now not only grieving but destitute. All their belongings lie in the wreckage of their fallen house and they face a third night sleeping outside in the bitter mountain cold.
Ben Henna's source of livelihood, the three-wheel moped he used to ferry goods around the neighbourhood for a small fee, was buried in falling debris
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