After months of prayers in mosques to beg for an end to six years of drought, floods are wreaking havoc in the arid south of Morocco. At least 10 people have died and seven others are missing after torrential rains hit the province of Tata over the weekend. The same area was already hit two weeks earlier by flash floods in the normally dry rivers that flow through gorges on the southern slopes of the Atlas Mountains. Since the end of August, a wave of exceptional rainfall has hit the south of the Maghreb country and the desert Sahel of Mali and Niger, due to an unusual northward shift of the so-called intertropical convergence zone.
The tragedy occurred last Friday with the occupants of a bus that was swept downstream by a violent flood of the Tata River, which swept away several bridges. The authorities were not able to confirm until Monday the final toll of 10 dead and seven missing, after 13 occupants of the vehicle were rescued alive or swam to safety. On the 16th, 18 people died (10 of them in the Tata province) in a first rainy season that was considered an exceptional weather phenomenon. Among the victims was a Spanish citizen – who was travelling in a convoy of tourist 4x4s – as well as a Peruvian and a Canadian. Another four people were reported missing.
Morocco’s General Directorate of Meteorology had issued a red alert, the highest level of warning, earlier this weekend in Tata province, the province most affected by the recent wave of rain. Many stretches of roads were cut off, as were basic electricity, telephone and water services. Dozens of houses have been destroyed or severely damaged by the floods. School classes have also been suspended to allow for the relocation of those affected by the floods. Authorities have sent security forces units along with public works brigades.
Tata province, which has already suffered intense flooding in 2019, 2021 and 2023, has many communities living in flood-prone areas. Oases and the water table act as natural regulators of water reserves, but the construction of reservoirs and massive pumping from wells to supply extensive agriculture appear to have upset the balance after a long period without rain, according to the Association for the Fight against Erosion, Drought and Desertification in Morocco. Many houses have been built near the banks of rivers whose beds are almost always dry, in the belief that water would not flow through them again. Several communities have also been built in narrow gorges, so that the floods have had a devastating effect there.
Rains in the earthquake zone
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Rainfall over the weekend in southeastern Morocco was more than half the annual average for the area, which is suffering from a prolonged drought, with the country’s reservoirs at just 29% of their capacity. The Atlas regions of Al Haouz and Taroudant, which suffered an earthquake a year ago that killed nearly 3,000 people, have also been affected by the recent floods. Tens of thousands of people are still living in tents after the destruction of some 60,000 homes in the quake.
The current storms have been caused by “an extremely unstable tropical air mass, due to the exceptional position of the intertropical front in the south of the country,” according to the General Directorate of Meteorology of Morocco. “The humid tropical air masses moved northwards, meeting cold air masses, resulting in the formation of unstable and violent clouds,” the official body said.
The intensification of extreme weather events has been noted in other areas of North Africa. Rain storms have hit the Sahel region since the end of June, causing more than 550 deaths and more than two million homeless in countries such as Chad, Niger, Nigeria and Mali. Climate change has caused unprecedented rainfall during the Sahel’s wet season, between July and September, since 2021. More than 500 families had to be evacuated on Monday from the Sahrawi refugee camp in Dakhla, located 170 kilometers from Tindouf (southwest Algeria), due to the heavy rains recorded, Efe reports. Tents and adobe houses collapsed like houses of cards.
