The Dead City

Lying between sand-colored mountains and the blue rollers of the Atlantic, the Moroccan seaport of Agadir (pop. 48,000) felt a slight earth tremor one afternoon last week. It was strong enough to tilt the pictures in Room 6 of the Marhaba resort hotel, but Mrs. Philip Mole, a British tourist, decided against mentioning it to her husband because he might worry. On the hilltop Casbah, a 16th century fortress, the tremor knocked over a slop pail in the mud-brick house of 16-year-old Hassan ben Mohammed, and he was scolded by his father for not having taken the pail outside. In a five-story apartment building in the European-style new city, the shock woke Mme. Andre Alabert from her siesta, and she called to her husband that someone was knocking at the door. He told her to go back to sleep.

Homage to Strength. Next day, life in Agadir* went on as usual. Moslem workers from the Casbah and the Talborjt quarter at the bottom of the hill traveled to their jobs in the mines, canneries and on the docks. Agadir's small Jewish colony (2,200) opened its shops and trucking offices.

Tourists Philip Mole and his wife had a swim at Agadir's superb beach, Andre Alabert was in the office of his prosperous electrical-equipment factory, and young Hassan took his father's three donkeys to pasture. That night at 10:50, Agadir was shaken again. Seventy-five Moslems from the Talborjt quarter hurried to their mosque confident that, on this third day of the holy month of Ramadan, Allah would "not strike us while we are paying homage to his strength, omnipotence and mercy."

Dust-Choked Dark. At 11:45 p.m., uncounted thousands of people and the entire city died. The great earthquake lasted only twelve seconds, and all of the damage was done in the two "center" seconds. In that catastrophic moment, the earth under Agadir moved 4 ft. and then wrenched back again, bringing down 70% of the city and burying its citizens in the rubble of their houses. A tidal wave from the Atlantic swept 300 yds. in from the shore. Lights went out, and the city's streets were flooded by bursting mains. Screams pierced the dust-choked dark, and fires began to flicker in the broken city, but all of Agadir's fire engines were buried in the ruins.

In the Casbah, 98% of the buildings collapsed and nearly two-thirds of their 2,500 inhabitants died. Young Hassan saved himself and his baby sister but lost his parents and grandparents. The Talborjt quarter at the foot of the Casbah was 80% leveled. Only the minaret of the mosque remained standing: its roof and walls had fallen in, crushing the 75 worshipers. An estimated 1,500 of Agadir's 2,200 Jews perished in the night.

In the new city the ruin was not quite total. Philip Mole and his wife were playing bridge in the lobby of the Marhaba Hotel when the ceiling fell; they were even able to go to their rooms and pack their belongings before leaving the hotel. The other two tourist hotels in the city collapsed, and the wife of a vacationing U.S. Air Force lieutenant was pinned for 38 hours in the wreckage of the Hotel Saada before being rescued.

Rats & Jackals. The first help for Agadir came from the nearby French naval airbase, which sent trucks, stretchers and fire-fighting equipment. From three U.S. bases came 300 men with bulldozers, generators and portable operating rooms. Moroccan soldiers poured in the next day. The badly injured were flown out to Casablanca and Rabat 50 at a time, but the planes arrived with many dead. Other wounded lay on stretchers in the streets, calling for water during the stifling heat of day, moaning in the cold of the African night. Rats and jackals dug for food in the ruined city, and weakening voices still cried from the tumbled buildings in French, Arabic, German, Swedish and English. The exhausted rescue teams working under the blazing noonday sun wore wet handkerchiefs across the lower parts of their faces in a futile effort to cut down the dreadful stench.

Sprinkled Lime. The recovered dead were put to rest in mass graves. A U.S. bulldozer scraped a trench 2 ft. deep, up to 100 ft. long and 10 ft. wide. Moroccan soldiers rolled the dead in, while their dazed relatives mourned in the background. When the ditch was filled with bodies, it was sprinkled with lime, and the bulldozer covered the open grave with tons of dirt. Religious scruples complicated the gravediggers' job. Imans insisted that Moslems be buried close to the surface in accordance with local tradition in Agadir, thus increasing the danger of plague. Jews begged that their dead fellow men be buried separately from the Moslems and Christians.

Few of the living could see any future for Agadir. King Mohammed V of Morocco pledged his personal fortune to start the rebuilding of the city. But one survivor said in anguish: "The only thing I'm thinking of is getting away, really away. The quicker they destroy this place the better. I doubt if they can ever get rid of the odor." At week's end, as it was feared that the toll of dead might mount above 10,000, a French cafe owner uttered Agadir's epitaph: "We were a peaceful union of Moslem and Christian, Arab and European. This was a prosperous city, and we had a future. We worked and behaved ourselves. We were growing. What in God's name do you suppose we did wrong?"

* Known previously to aging history students as the site of a crisis that almost precipitated World War I. In 1911, as France was extending its influence over Morocco, Germany sent a small warship to Agadir to protect the "lives and property" of German merchants. British pressure finally produced a settlement.

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