Tizert (Morocco) (AFP)

The village of Tizert, in southern Morocco, is in shock Thursday, the day after the death of at least seven people in a violent flood, a tragedy occurred on a football field located near a wadi (river ).

While the inhabitants of the village bury their dead, a helicopter flies over the locality, located in the region of Taroudant: according to various testimonies collected by the AFP on the spot or by telephone, research is in progress to find possible other victims, including a 65-year-old man missing.

On Wednesday, the flood, linked to bad weather, took away a 17-year-old and six elderly men, according to a provisional report published Wednesday night by local authorities. All from the region, the victims attended a football tournament, according to the same source.

Local authorities announced the opening of an investigation to determine the circumstances of the tragedy and define the responsibilities.

The disaster provoked indignant reactions on social networks.

- "devastating flood" -

The emotion in the village is as great as people upstream had sent warning messages, but "nobody expected such a devastating flood," according to testimony collected by an AFP correspondent .

The land had recently been equipped with new equipment, said two residents contacted by phone.

The images of his joyful inauguration turn on social networks, just like the impressive ones, the muddy waves that swept away in a few minutes the ground and its equipment.

In the Tizert region, as is often the case in the mountainous regions of Morocco, football fields are frequently built in dry wadi beds, often the only flat place, according to AFP testimonies.

On Wednesday, eight men who had taken refuge in the locker room when the wadi overflowed after a violent storm, were washed away by the waves, said an eyewitness who requested anonymity.

"We are the shock, I am 64 years old and never in my life have I seen such a deluge," said this witness by phone.

- "Memory of man" -

"The field has existed for 30 years, people have always played there, my father told me that the wadi had already overflowed but, from memory, we have never seen that," confirmed by phone Abdelkrim Bourrich, 41, president of a local association.

Before the new developments - construction of the stands and the cloakroom--, "some people raised the question about the possible risks of floods but they were not taken into account because it has been several years since there was not had such a disaster, "lamented Lotfi Khaled, member of the association" Assouli ", involved in local development.

A special bulletin of the Directorate of Meteorology (DMN) had alerted Wednesday late afternoon on the risk of stormy showers "orange" in several provinces of the kingdom. The rise of the waters has been all the more rapid as the torrential rains follow a period of drought.

Floods regularly hit isolated areas of Morocco, with flash floods that can turn the dry beds of wadis into violent and destructive torrents. In 2014, floods linked to torrential rains had left some 50 dead and considerable damage in the south.

Flooding is "the first risk in terms of people killed at the national level", according to a report on climate risks published in 2016 by the Royal Institute for Strategic Studies (IRES).

With the risk of landslides, "the floods will affect nearly 21,000 people a year, by 2030" in this country of North Africa, according to this study.

While climate change is exacerbating extreme weather events around the world, weather has become "structural" in Morocco, according to the report, which called for various measures for risk management.

"We are obliged (...) to review our standards, both for the design of new works and for the maintenance of existing infrastructure," said the Moroccan Minister of Equipment in the preamble of this report.

© 2019 AFP