News footage from the site, broadcast on Moroccan television, showed emergency services carrying corpses out on stretchers under the eyes of clearly traumatised residents
RABAT, Feb 9 (NNN-AGENCIES) — At least 24 people died after heavy rain caused a flood in an illegal underground textile workshop in a private house in Morocco.
Rescue workers recovered 24 bodies from the Tangiers property and rescued 10 survivors who were taken to hospital, state-owned MAP news agency said citing local authorities. A search of the premises was continuing.
Local media outlets indicated at least some of the victims may have been electrocuted as the incoming water interfered with power facilities, but there was no immediate confirmation of those reports.
One government official at the scene said 25 people had died, 17 women and eight men, all aged between 20 and 40, according to a local media.
News footage from the site, broadcast on Moroccan television, showed emergency services carrying corpses out on stretchers under the eyes of clearly traumatised residents, as a stream of ambulances rushed to the scene.
Workers were saved thanks to a local resident who helped them out of the flooded basement with a rope, according to a local journalist who spoke to witnesses.
An inquiry has been launched to determine the cause of the accident and those responsible, the MAP agency added.
Morocco’s informal labour sector represents about a fifth of non-agricultural economic activity and labourers often work in unsafe conditions.
“How can dozens of workers enter the garage of a residential building for years… without the local authorities noticing?” asked local rights group the Northern Observatory for Human Rights.
Morocco registers some 2,000 deaths each year due to work-related accidents, “one of the highest figures” in the Middle East and North Africa, according to the Economic, Social and Environmental Council (CESE).
The North African country has experienced heavy rains in recent weeks, after a long period of drought.
In early January, the inclement weather caused several dilapidated buildings to collapse in Casablanca, the country’s economic capital, causing at least four deaths, according to local media.
Poorly maintained drainage systems often exacerbate flooding in cities.
Fifty people died in floods in 2014 caused by heavy rains in the south of Morocco. — NNN-AGENCIES
