Over the past decades, Morocco has been hit by a series of earthquakes of varying intensity and magnitude, some of which have caused massive destruction and casualties amounting to thousands of deaths.

The most important of these tremors are distributed between northern Morocco in the mountainous region of Al Hoceima overlooking the Mediterranean Sea, central Morocco over the Middle Atlas Mountains in the cities of Azilal, Beni Mellal and Khenifra, and then south in the coastal region of Agadir overlooking the Atlantic Ocean.

Here is a chronology of the most prominent earthquakes that Morocco has experienced in the past decades:

Agadir earthquake

This earthquake occurred in 1960, and was the deadliest and most devastating in the history of Morocco, as it devastated the southern Atlantic city of Agadir, measuring 5.7 on the Richter scale, killing about 15,12 people (about a third of the city's population at the time) and injuring 35,<> others, while leaving at least <>,<> people homeless.

1994 Al Hoceima earthquake

Al Hoceima and its environs have experienced a number of earthquakes, including the 1994 earthquake, which measured six on the Richter scale, and occurred near Al Hoceima, killing two people and injuring dozens.


2004 Al Hoceima earthquake

This earthquake is considered one of the strongest and most violent earthquakes in Morocco, and occurred in Al Hoceima on February 24, 2004, killing about 600 people, injuring hundreds of others, displacing more than 15,<>, leaving significant material losses, and was considered one of the strongest natural disasters the Kingdom has seen.

Al-Hawz earthquake

It is the latest in the series, which occurred late on Friday, killing and wounding about a thousand people, according to an initial toll.

The Moroccan Interior Ministry said in a statement that the victims fell in the provinces and prefectures (regions) of El Haouz, Marrakech, Ouarzazate, Azilal, Chichaoua and Taroudant.

Experts believe that Morocco's presence in the geological epicenter of two plates, African and Eurasian, necessarily puts it at the center of the vibrations caused by the convergence of these moving plates.

Earthquakes often occur at the edges of continents and their confluence with some bodies of water, for example, the confluence of the Pacific Ocean with East Asia or the western Americas, and the more we enter the middle of land in the continents, the less likely earthquakes are as we can see here in Eurasia, Africa and the Americas.

There are seven major plates in the globe, the largest of which is the Pacific Plate, then North America and Eurasia, and earthquakes are located at the meeting points of these plates.

The largest earthquakes in the past century are the Chile earthquake in 1960, which reached almost 9.5 on the Richter scale, then the Alaska earthquake in 1964 with a magnitude of 9.2, the Sumatra earthquake in Indonesia in 2004, and the Tohoku earthquake in Japan in 2011 with a magnitude of more than nine as well.

But the largest earthquake does not mean that it is the most harmful, as this is related to the population density at the site of the earthquake, as the Tangshan earthquake in China, which was estimated at 300,200 victims, was the most harmful to humans, and the second in China also the Haiyuan earthquake with a similar number of victims, and then the Sumatra earthquake with more than <>,<> deaths.

The world's most costly earthquake was in Japan, with losses estimated at $2011 billion in the 360 Tohoku earthquake, followed by the Great Hanshin in 1995 with an estimated $200 billion.