Just past 11 o’clock local time, Tumbler Ridge Global Geopark Executive Director Manda Maggs was washing the grime of the day off her face when the ground beneath her feet began to sway.
“Have you ever been standing on a floating dock when someone is walking down it? It was a bit like that, but there was a sound like a locomotive passing under my feet.”
Maggs is one of three delegates from Tumbler Ridge at the Geopark conference, held every two years. She is there along with Operations Manager Jenna McQueen and Geoscientist Roy Rule.
Maggs says the delegation was there to share information about the Canadian Geoparks, as well as to receive their revalidation certificate, which was supposed to be part of the closing ceremony for the event.
But the last day of the conference was cancelled, due to the earthquake, as was a trip up into the Geopark.
“The last two days of the conference were supposed to be a field trip to M’Goun Geopark, which is in the Atlas Mountains,” says Maggs. “We were extremely lucky the earthquake hit when it did. Not for the people of Morocco, but the people at this conference specifically. We were about to send several hundred more people out into those mountains in buses. They were going to stay in some of those communities that you’ve been seeing on the news and I’m just very glad that we were not in those areas when it struck. I think that would have been a lot worse to have more people where they already have limited resources.”
She says a lot of the damage in Marrakesh is in the old part of the city. “Luckily, a lot of our colleagues were staying in the new city, which is more modern and more of the buildings are proofed against things like earthquakes.”
Marrakesh is nearly a thousand years old, and the old city—the medina—is a UNESCO heritage site because of its historical significance. “There’s really old buildings, including this gorgeous mosque that has had some damage but the main tower still stands,” says Maggs.
More than 2000 people are dead and many more area missing after a magnitude 6.8 quake, centred less than 100 km southwest of Marrakesh hit central Morocco on September 8.
When the earthquake struck, Maggs moved into the doorframe of the bathroom and called to her aunt, who is travelling with her. “I shouted for my auntie to come and join me. I was peering around the corner at her. I could see the floor was moving under her feet. She actually fell down—she’s fine—but she scrambled over to me and we both just clung inside the doorway until it stopped.
“Things were moving and shaking and one light in our hotel room smashed and there’s all these cracks that have appeared in the walls but largely that’s because a lot of what they use here for decoration is plaster, which didn’t hold up.”
The earthquake lasted about 40 seconds. “Before the earthquake was over, I felt my phone buzz. I looked at it right after, and one of the geoscientists that we were traveling with had already posted in the chat, ‘This is an earthquake. This is what you do as soon as it stops shaking.’ It was really lucky that we were traveling at a conference full of geoscience specialists from all over the world that specialize in geo-hazards.”
As soon as it stopped shaking, Maggs and her aunt grabbed their passports, grabbed their shoes and headed outside.
Because of worries of aftershocks, they weren’t allowed back into the hotel, so Maggs spent the evening on the street, trying to sleep beneath a towel.
Fortunately, there were no injuries to any of the delegates at the conference, and the Tumbler Ridge delegates are due back in town before the paper comes out.
Trent is the publisher of Tumbler RidgeLines.
