Morocco’s Safi counts the cost in aftermath of deadly flash floods

Search and rescue operations were continuing successful the Moroccan municipality of Safi aft flash floods killed astatine slightest 37 people.

Drought-hit Morocco often experiences terrible weather, but Sunday’s flooding successful the coastal municipality is the deadliest specified catastrophe successful astatine slightest a decade.

A muddy torrent swept cars and bins from the streets of Safi, which lies astir 300km (190 miles) southbound of the capital, Rabat.

The General Directorate of Meteorology (DGM), Morocco’s nationalist upwind forecaster, has warned that further thunderstorms are apt implicit the adjacent 3 days successful respective regions, including Safi.

Survivors are inactive receiving attraction astatine the town’s Mohammed V Hospital, with 2 remaining successful intensive care, according to section officials.

Schools person been closed arsenic mud and debris proceed to clog the streets.

Safi is known arsenic a centre for arts and crafts, peculiarly terracotta pottery, and its streets were near strewn with shattered bowls and tajines.

The Moroccan prosecutor’s bureau has opened an probe to find whether anyone bears work for the standard of the damage, according to the authoritative quality bureau MAP.

Addressing parliament, Prime Minister Aziz Akhannouch said: “Thirty-seven millimetres (1.5 inches) of rainfall fell successful a abbreviated period, hitting the historical Bab Chabaa territory of Safi, which is crossed by a river, and causing the deaths of galore merchants and workers.”

As the waters receded, a scenery of mud and overturned cars was revealed. Civil Protection units and residents soon started clearing the debris.

Morocco is enduring its seventh consecutive twelvemonth of terrible drought, and past twelvemonth was the North African kingdom’s hottest connected record.

Climate alteration has made storms much intense, arsenic a warmer ambiance holds much moisture and warmer seas tin spur upwind systems.