AT least 22 people have been killed and a further 16 injured after two buildings collapsed in the Moroccan city of Fez.
The two four-storey residential buildings that came down early on Wednesday morning contained eight families, state media reports, citing local officials.
Several Moroccan news outlets report that the buildings – located in the south-westerly Al Massira suburb of the new part of the city – had shown signs of deterioration for several years. An investigation is now under way.
Fez, in north-eastern Morocco, is one of the North African nation’s oldest cities, with parts dating back to the 8th Century, as well as being its third-most populous.
A search and rescue operation is ongoing to find anyone who may still be trapped under the rubble. Footage from the scene shows people and diggers sifting through the debris under the cover of darkness.
In one clip, published by news site Akhbarona, a body can be seen being carried away on a stretcher by emergency services.
Residents of nearby buildings have been evacuated as a preventative measure, state media reports.
Those taken to hospital suffered varying injuries.
The public prosecutor’s office in Fez said one of the buildings had been empty but that the other had been hosting a celebration for the birth of a child when the incident occurred, state media reports.
It has now opened an investigation into the cause and circumstances of the collapse, local media reports.
Residents were quick to blame haphazard construction.
“People shouldn’t keep building and encroaching on the next building [over],” one of them, Abdelali, told Hespress, adding that one of the buildings had fallen onto the other.
Another, Idris, said the whole incident had occurred in less than two minutes.
“It was a sudden thing,” he told the news site. “We were shocked, we couldn’t sleep, we ran away from our homes and went outside.”
Fez was among Moroccan cities caught up in youth-led anti-government protests a few months back, with improved housing and infrastructure among demonstrators’ demands.
The country’s housing minister Adib Ben Ibrahim said in January that around 13,700 buildings nationwide were under imminent risk of collapse.
Nine were killed when a condemned building collapsed in a different neighbourhood of Fez in May.
Prior to that, five people were killed when a house in the old city crumbled in February 2024, following heavy rain and strong winds.