Inside a damaged house in the epicenter of the Moroccan earthquake in a village in the High Atlas
On Sept. 8, 2023, Montserrat Villaverde was staying in the small Moroccan town of Tabant, a mud and adobe village in the Aït Bougemez valley that sits at an altitude of 2,527 meters (8290 feet) in the High Atlas mountain range.
At 10:11 p.m., Villaverde was texting on her phone, under the overwhelming celestial vault that embraces one of the places with the least light pollution in the Mediterranean. A low rumble suddenly shook the foundations of the five-story building and the earth began to shake with an unknown force: a magnitude 6.8 earthquake — the most devastating in the Morocco's modern history.
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“The movement was amazing. I was paralyzed. The house moved from one side to the other. It was as if the mountain began to howl," Villaverde said over the phone from Barcelona, where she is an architecture professor at the Ramón Llull University. An expert in traditional architecture of the Arab world, she is also in charge of heritage at the RehabiMed Association. And she knows the High Atlas like the back of her hand.
The day of the earthquake, she had just completed one of her many field projects to document the splendid popular architecture of adobe, rammed earth and stone that populates the rugged Maghrebi mountains.
After the violent seismic movement, an absolute silence returned in the valley, where there are hardly any cell phones or road traffic. The first thing she checked was if the five-story rammed earth building was still standing. It had wobbled like a house of cards but had absorbed the impetuous seismic waves with surprising solidity. In Tabant, there is no urban lighting, but from her window, she could hear the murmur of terrified people going out into the street to be safe from another possible shock.
Tabant did not suffer any serious damage. A majority of the houses were built using ancient mud and adobe techniques. The capital of the Aït Bougemez valley, it was not the only town to resist the quake reasonably well. Dozens of other towns in the area, also sculpted in ancient earthen architecture, withstood the violence of one of the deadliest earthquakes in recent African history.
“I only saw one devastated town, located half an hour from where I was. But the rest of the mountain area remained intact,” Villaverde said.
Scattered populations
The first estimates put the death toll of the earthquake at almost 3,000 and 50,000 houses partially or completely destroyed. According to Faissal Cherradi, an architect at the Moroccan Ministry of Culture, 10,000 families may have been left without housing in the areas affected by the earthquake, mainly in the High Atlas.
"We are talking about approximately 40,000 people," Cherradi told La Marea from Morocco. “The human settlement in the High Atlas is very scattered. We are talking about small towns or districts, sometimes with tiny nuclei of eight or 10 families only." The reconstruction of all these homes is an arduous task for the Moroccan government, precisely because of their vast dispersion. And even more since these populations, deeply rooted in their land despite the harsh environment, refuse to regroup to facilitate sanitation or electricity networks.
Cherradi has already been to the epicenter area four times. “The priority was to check whether people could continue living in the houses or not. Now what matters is the people. The cold and the snow are coming, and families need a better roof than a tent," he said at the beginning of autumn. The architect is convinced that adobe and rammed earth have resisted seismic shocks better than other more modern buildings.
"In many homes, ancient and contemporary techniques are mixed with little skill but with dramatic consequences."
"I can assure you that earthen architecture absorbs earthquakes much better than reinforced concrete architecture." Why? Among other things, because the concrete that is manufactured in that area is low quality, usually poorly made and buildings have terrible foundations.
Cherradi argues that the most serious problem in this area has been sliding slopes, formed by sheets of slate, which, in many cases, have dragged away the mud houses. “Some towns have moved 75 or 100 meters (250 to 330 feet). And, of course, that strains any type of foundations,” he said. “This place has suffered a magnitude seven earthquake. Nothing can stand that. It only happens in Japan or Mexico, which haves trong anti-seismic legislation."
The High Atlas is a territory secularly isolated, where building your own house is frequent. Traditional crafts have been slowly abandoned and specialized bricklayers are becoming increasingly scarce. Thus, in many homes, ancient and contemporary techniques are mixed with little skill but with dramatic consequences.
An ancient culture
Days after the earthquake, the International Committee on Monuments and Sites (ICOMOS) released a statement praising the Moroccan native architecture and its ancient culture. The UNESCO advisory organization called out the false image of fragility of mud houses spread by the media. "The architecture from the past does not collapse simply because it is old, nor because it was built with traditional materials," the Spanish ICOMOS committee said.
Fernando Vegas, professor at the Polytechnic University of Valencia and expert in earthen architecture, agrees. "There is brutal misinformation in the media," he said, talking about the capacity to resist earthquakes of this type of popular construction.
"Earthen architecture has been used in the Atlas for thousands of years. It has its own mechanisms to withstand seismic movements. It has buttresses, wooden sleepers and systems to absorb oscillations," he said, noting the problem is the constructive degradation of traditional techniques and the lack of maintenance in all these adobe and rammed earth buildings.
The biggest enemy of earthen architecture is the consideration it is given: It is seen as a sign of poverty.
Many of them have been restored with cement, which led to unforeseen consequences. “Cement is very rigid. By using it on earthen architecture, you think you are reinforcing it when what you are actually doing is preventing it from moving naturally," he says. "If I put cement in an old wooden floor or in plaster, what I am doing is setting a time bomb so that the next movement will cause the entire wall to fall."
This whole constellation of adobe and rammed earth homes represents a cultural heritage of enormous value. “We are lucky to have such a lively architecture,” Cherradi said.
A traditional treasure that is no stranger to the emergence of modern construction techniques. “The biggest enemy of earthen architecture is the consideration it is given: It is seen as a sign of poverty, while concrete represents prosperity," he laments.
A similar phenomenon occurred in Europe throughout the 20th century, particularly in the countries along the Mediterranean, and whose economic growth came with the abandonment of traditional architecture and the invasion of cement. "Thank goodness the king defended the preservation of the popular architectural heritage in his speech after the earthquake," Cherradi says.
House tour
Many towns in the High Atlas do not have roads. Their residents survive on livestock and agriculture. They grow almonds, walnuts, vegetables, legumes, lentils, carrots or tomatoes in a rudimentary family supply system. Once a week, they go to the regional souks to sell their products and buy others.
As we gain altitude, the houses are made of mud. Adobe is more widespread in the lower parts. The roofs are flat with wooden joists, wattle, earth and lime. On the edges wild chamomile grows to protect the terrace wall. Adobe combined with wood make the interior partitions.
“Inside, the houses are very simple,” Cherradi said. There is a central courtyard and in one corner there is usually a stable for the animals, most of the time a mule, some sheep and goats, sometimes even cows. There are two, three and four-story homes, all made of earth. And each family has two or three rooms. One for the kitchen and the warehouse, where they store wheat, barley and food. And two rooms to live in.
"The kitchen is very rudimentary, usually made of wood," he said. It is common to have an oven attached to the building to make bread. “The kitchen is a little round wall with the woman sitting in a tiny chair, almost squatting, with her clay pots. The typical kitchen that existed in Andalusia before the stoves arrived." As you descend the mountain, popular architecture gets richer.
There is no running water nor sewer system. Each house usually has a well, each garden has an irrigation ditch and there are many septic tanks. "These people only leave their communities for go to the doctor or to school, for the children, and the Friday prayer — as not every village has its mosque," Cherradi said.
A sustainable material
During his 30 years at the Moroccan Ministry of Culture, Cherradi has worked tenaciously to protect the country's immense architectural legacy. "We have signed all the texts possible with UNESCO. One of them, in 1997, was in defense of native architecture.” On the ground, the government is making efforts to limit the use of concrete and to promote traditional construction as a tool for energy efficiency. "Earthen architecture has better bioclimatic performance and that is one of the incentives," Cherradi said.
In addition to its heritage value and resilient qualities against earthquakes, earthen architecture is also in the spotlight due to global warming. "The clay serves as a thermo hygrometric regulator," Vegas said. “Mud houses stay very cool in summer and warm in winter. Some studies also say clay largely absorbs toxins from the environment.”
"Doing this type of construction again would really tick all the boxes in the fight against climate change."
Furthermore, it is a perfectly sustainable material. It is sourced near the houses, does not generate waste and consumes very little energy. "It has many advantages," says the Valencian professor. "Doing this type of construction again would be beneficial because they really tick all the boxes in the fight against climate change."
Despite its significant advantages, earthen architecture is in decline throughout the Mediterranean region — including in Morocco. Mud is associated with precariousness, concrete to development. And that social perception is very difficult to reverse, at least, today.
“When we no longer have any craftsmen who know how to make rammed earth, we will realize that we have made a mistake, the same mistake made in Europe," Cherradi said.
