TINISKT: For the past year, Kebira Ait Bellaid has lived in a tent in a mountain village in Morocco, haunted by the memory of losing her daughter and three grandchildren. “I can still hear the screams of my nine-year-old grandson under the rubble,” the 52-year-old said, recalling the Sept. 8 earthquake that devastated the area. “This earthquake changed me forever,” she told AFP. The 6.8-magnitude earthquake killed nearly 3,000 people and damaged the homes of more than two million people across the High Atlas region. Forty-five people were killed in Tiniskt, a village perched in the mountains about 70 kilometers (45 miles) southwest of Marrakesh. Of the roughly 500 villagers who remained, many still live in tents and cannot escape the trauma. Khadija Id Yassine said she tries to forget the earthquake but it “remains anchored” in her mind with tears in her eyes. “Life in the tent was difficult, between the freezing winters and the stifling heat of the summer,” said Yassine, a mother of three whose house is still awaiting renovation. The government provided most families in Tiniskt with an initial payment of 20,000 Moroccan dirhams (around $2,000). But no houses were rebuilt. Locals are frustrated not only by the slow pace of resettlement, but also by how new homes are being built. Concrete is widely used in Tiniskt and other villages rather than traditional building materials such as clay and stone. Architect Khalil Morad El Gilali thinks this is a “big mistake”. “It’s expensive, it doesn’t fit in this environment and it’s not reliable,” he said. Gilali was involved in the reconstruction of 70 houses using traditional clay and stone from the villages, rejecting projects using concrete. He claims the authorities have shown a “lack of vision” in their rush to rebuild. But Al Omrane’s Bouih said traditional architecture takes more time – a luxury in short supply when people are in desperate need of shelter.
