Turkey, still recovering from February earthquake, offers aid to Morocco

One of the first countries to offer help to Morocco on Saturday was Turkey, which in February experienced its own powerful earthquake that spread devastation throughout its southern region and into neighboring Syria. Turkey said it would send personnel and supplies, including 265 aid workers and 1,000 tents, to Morocco.

Turkey’s Disaster and Emergency Management Authority, a government organization, said in a message posted on X, formerly known as Twitter, that it was standing by to dispatch personnel as soon as Moroccan officials would allow.

Turkey and Syria are still recovering from a 7.8-magnitude earthquake that struck early on Feb. 6 and was followed by a 7.5-magnitude aftershock hours later that was nearly as powerful. The affected area spread over 200 miles. In Turkey, authorities said more than 43,000 people had died. In Syria, the death toll surpassed 5,500, according to figures from the United Nations.

Thousands of buildings were destroyed or rendered unstable, leaving hundreds of thousands of people without shelter in rain, snow and temperatures that often dipped below freezing.

Now, more than seven months later both countries are still rebuilding and recovering. Turkey will likely be sending people with recent expertise in the rescue process after emergency workers spent several days searching for survivors in the rubble and then several more weeks trying to recover the bodies of victims.

Morocco is likely to need people with that kind of experience. The country’s interior ministry said Saturday night that the death toll from the earthquake, which struck the western High Atlas Mountains region, had surpassed 1,300, and that more than 1,800 people were injured. Rescuers were continuing to comb through the rubble in search of survivors.