At 11:11 p.m. local time on 8 September 2023, a magnitude 6.8 earthquake struck the High Atlas Mountains of Morocco, centred in Al Haouz province about 72 km southwest of Marrakesh, at a depth of roughly 19 km. The rupture occurred on a fault beneath the Atlas range that had not produced a quake of this size in the era of instrumental monitoring.
The earthquake killed an estimated 2,960 people and injured more than 5,600, making it Morocco's deadliest disaster since the 1960 Agadir earthquake more than six decades earlier. Damage was concentrated in remote mountain villages of the High Atlas, where entire settlements built from traditional stone and mud-brick construction collapsed within seconds.
Rescue efforts were slowed for days by the mountainous, often roadless terrain, leaving many communities isolated with little outside help immediately after the quake. Total economic losses were estimated at around $7 billion, and the historic medina of Marrakesh, a UNESCO World Heritage Site some 70 km from the epicentre, also suffered damage to centuries-old walls and monuments.
The disaster prompted Morocco to announce a multi-year national reconstruction and seismic-resilience programme for the Atlas region, including stricter building standards for rural housing. Along with the 1960 Agadir earthquake, it stands as one of the two defining seismic disasters in Morocco's modern history, and it sharpened attention on the seismic hazard of the High Atlas fault systems that run through one of the country's most densely populated rural regions.