Earthquakes Are a Special Kind of Nightmare
Morocco is facing the particular trauma that comes from watching the world around you crumble in an instant.
On Friday, around 11:11 p.m. local time, a magnitude 6.8 earthquake exploded through the High Atlas mountains in Morocco, not far from the populous city of Marrakesh. People as far away as Spain and Portugal felt a strange vibration ripple beneath their feet. But millions in Morocco felt the planet shake and splinter, jolt and disintegrate, before thousands of the most unfortunate were greeted by tectonic rage. At least 2,100 people are dead, and that number is expected to rise. According to the Euro-Mediterranean Seismological Center, an NGO, several aftershocks convulsed through the area earlier today.
Every tragedy leaves behind its own idiosyncratic scars, both physical and psychological. But there is something uniquely nightmarish about major earthquakes that strike under or close to villages, towns, and cities. They are murderous ambushes operating on gargantuan scales, beginning and ending with unforgiving and unparalleled efficiency—characteristics that make the terror they incite arguably unmatched by any other geologically or environmentally triggered disaster.
Tragedies born of geologic forces can be simultaneously extreme and swift. Volcanic eruptions can produce rivers of scorching gas, ash, and debris that move at breathtaking speed, igniting and scouring anything in their path. Tsunamis—caused by the dramatic twitching of tectonic plates and their faults, or by immense landslides, or by volcanic explosions—can, and have, effortlessly swept entire towns and villages aside in a matter of minutes.
But earthquakes are different, both in the way we experience them and how they kill. With some exceptions, a tsunami voyaging quickly across the ocean will set off alarms in distant countries, giving those who receive the warning some time to flee or brace themselves. Volcanoes usually give off warning signs hours, days, sometimes even months or years in advance that an eruption is likely on its way. But we currently do not have any way to know when the next significant earthquake will strike, precisely where it will strike, how powerful it will be, how much shaking it will cause, or what kind of damage it will do.
The essentially immediate, invisible arrival of an earthquake is almost supernatural. Science tells us that earthquakes arise from the sudden release of energy accumulated over years, decades, or centuries. But to those caught in the swift oblivion, who then endure the seemingly unending cascade of aftershocks, earthquakes seem to appear not somewhere but everywhere, in union, like the sum total force of a thunderous storm fulminating all at once. Everything shudders. Quake-resistant buildings may sway for a few moments before cracking or worse, but others will speedily succumb. Some crumble; others topple. Plenty collapse directly downward. What once looked to be solid by human standards becomes horrifying fluid. It is as if a great monster, long imprisoned in Stygian depths, has escaped and is determined to obliterate the surface realm.
In mere moments, entire neighborhoods vanish. Entire families are exterminated. Some may be entombed under the ruins of the place in which they grew up or raised their children or reunited with old friends. Survivors of the cataclysmic back-to-back earthquakes in Turkey and Syria this February have told reporters what happens next:. People trapped in the rubble wait in purgatory, wondering which of their loved ones may still be breathing; many perish inside these hollows of concrete, mud, silt, metal, and brick. And those who aren’t physically trapped, who just happened to be far from any susceptible buildings, are still caught in a desperate dread, questioning the reality that seemed immovable just a moment ago. What just happened? Do I still have a home? Is my daughter okay? Is my dog still alive? Where is my wife? I just saw her; we just spoke; she was right there.
These soul-destroying queries arise in many disasters. But the sheer rapidity with which an earthquake can steal what we love can feel impossible to process. A 1976 earthquake in Tangshan, China, killed at least 242,000 people at the drop of a hat. One moment, life—that troublesome, stressful, wonderful, beautiful thing—was happening. Then, it wasn’t.
In one crucial way, the devastation earthquakes cause is no different than that caused by any other geologic or environmental disaster: The poorest always suffer the most. The pair of quakes that devastated parts of Turkey and Syria back in February are a perfect example of that dichotomy. Yes, the temblors themselves were potent, but as reports produced in the early aftermath noted, many buildings in the afflicted region, which is known to be tectonically active, were plainly vulnerable. They did not possess quake-resistant structural features—in this case, due to a combination of lackadaisical and rapacious attitudes in the construction industry, and systemic corruption overseen by the increasingly authoritarian Turkish government. At least 55,000 people across the region died, and not all of them had to.
The death toll from the earthquake in Morocco likely will continue to increase for days, perhaps weeks. Undoubtedly, some parts of Marrakesh will have been more prone to collapse, and many of the buildings in the villages dotting the High Atlas mountains will have been too. Eventually, residents will ask the ultimate question—how could this have happened?—and find that the answer is partly geologic in nature but also significantly anthropogenic.
But, more immediately, the fact that such an aggressive earthquake happened at all will occupy everyone’s thoughts. Like the disaster in Turkey and Syria, the Moroccan quake struck at night; many would have been turning in for the weekend or already in bed, asleep, vulnerable and unsuspecting. Many of those who narrowly escaped death in Turkey and Syria, and the diaspora who watched in horror from afar, are likely feeling that terror all over again. Turkey was one of the first countries to offer aid to Morocco, and condolences from the survivors of earthquakes past are cropping up on social media. Soon after the news broke, a dear friend of mine, who lost several family members in Turkey’s seismic event, posted a photograph of Moroccans sleeping on the debris-strewn streets to social media with the caption: “This just kills me on all levels.”
In the wake of many historic tragedies, ghost stories emerge. Not long after the Tōhoku earthquake and tsunami in Japan in 2011, a disaster that claimed about 20,000 lives, tales of spectral people, including school children and seniors, became commonplace: Cab drivers would pick up passengers that vanished into thin air; pensioners known to be deceased would briefly turn up in temporary housing to join their friends; drowned people would saunter into their neighbors’ waterlogged homes and calmly sit in puddles.
Nowadays, most of us believe that the dead don’t come back. But study after study suggests that their loved ones remain haunted. These survivors may themselves may feel like ghosts for a while, living in their own world of indescribable trauma. Earthquakes can birth many such specters. Morocco’s catastrophe will be no exception.