Haunted by the rubble: Morocco's earthquake survivors struggle with PTSD

The earthquake that struck the country a year ago has never stopped here in the Atlas Mountains.

In Ounayen, a village nestled in these mountains, people, buildings, and objects still carry the memories of the death and destruction that hit the area on 8 September 2023, killing more than 2,900 people.

"For me, the quake has never stopped. I still see it and feel it every day," says Omar Ouzart, a villager, sitting outside in the heat in front of his plastic tent.

Omar pulled six members of his family from under the rubble, including his mother and sister. The recollections of their bodies become more macabre with each retelling, and his voice grows shakier.

"I started digging frantically. I touched her back (his sister). It was soft and broken. I knew she was dead," he said.

He struggles to continue, tears welling up.

He recounts his story while sitting on the ground where his family died, gazing at the rubble and makeshift tents. Next to him, his wife Latifa is calming their toddler, Mustapha.

"Our son is always scared. I was pregnant with him when the quake hit […] I survived the pregnancy by a miracle," Latifa adds.

Omar is facing numerous bureaucratic struggles to receive aid, build a house, and return to his life before the tragedy. Everything, he says, around him is holding him back.

Rushed clean-up

Just a few meters away lies the rubble of his aunt's house. A pot of tea, an empty box of sweets, and a small table still standing serve as witnesses to her last meal.

"Authorities have supposedly already cleaned this place," says her son, Mohamed, who sits in the shade next to his mother's table. Villagers say ruins were left behind because the authorities rushed the cleaning process. Meanwhile, cracked houses have yet to be fixed as the state aid delays.

"When this is your walk to the mosque, how could you ever move on?" he points at a road littered with rubble and ruin.

Omar has also been beset with disturbing visions since last September. He says he is mentally struggling and in desperate need of help that he cannot afford and has never been offered.

"I was already in a fragile state; my father died only a few days before the quake," says the 30-year-old villager.

The belongings he saved from the house and collected inside a tent—a final memento of his family—caught fire three days after the quake.

Now, he has nothing but his community, and friends he bonded with because of the trauma of the earthquake.

Waiting under a walnut tree

Under a walnut tree, Mohamed Azafad, Omar's friend, sits on a green chair, gazing at the fig trees around.

"I was sitting here on this chair the night of the earthquake," he says as he asks permission to light a cigarette.

Mohamed takes great pride in saving dozens of people from over 70 douars in his village, Ounayen.

Still, he blames himself for those he could not reach.

When the quake struck, thousands of remote villages around the Atlas were cut off from electricity and communication. In the best-case scenario, authorities arrived the next afternoon and still needed local help to navigate the complex villages' geography.

Mohamed was one of those who dug through the rubble with his bare hands. He recognised almost everyone, since people from the same village are like one family in the Atlas. However, one story stuck with him.

"I recognised her perfume because I was the one who bought it for her," says Mohamed, recalling the moment he found the body of his 16-year-old cousin.

"I kept digging frantically. When I saw her, I froze. I couldn't finish," Mohamed adds before he leaves in a hurry, sniffing.

The 37-year-old man has just started seeing a therapist in Agadir, a journey that costs so much time and money, but he says he needs it.

"I wake up having visions of the woman with her baby outside of her womb, or limbs stuck under rubble," he says. "I am not who I was before the quake. I am now angry and unstable."

The fact that the earthquake is a natural disaster that cannot be known in advance is more likely to cause the survivors to experience a sense of helplessness, changes in mood and psychological problems, according to a study by NP Istanbul Brain Hospital.

Therefore, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) and depression are the most common mental disorders after the earthquake if survivors don't get the help they need, and they haven't here.

At midnight, Omar and other friends join Mohamed under the tree. They vent and curse every official who wronged them while sharing bites of olive oil-infused tajine. To cheer up, they are trying to plan something special for the earthquake anniversary.

"We will sit under the walnut tree and try not to die," says one of them. Others burst into laughter.