That's brilliant and will be a big help for everyone, not just during the relief efforts.

I'm not currently a mapper but really should be as I often drive unmapped tracks

Update from the British Moroccan Society Earthquake Appeal

The first phase of responding to this natural disaster is behind us now. As the attention of the worlds media moves on it is clear that we face a long and hard winter ahead with the region still experiencing aftershocks.

Your continued support is hugely appreciated as we concentrate on the basics of food, clean water, shelter and warm clothes.

1. The BMS and our friends at Heston Lions Club (special thanks to Jatinder Kaur ) and the SWAT Club (Nishkam SWAT) have held a hugely successful collection of tents, clothes and other essential items in the London. Two forty foot containers are leaving today and our Marrakech team are preparing to receive and distribute those items.

2. We continue to send targeted supplies to villages that have asked for them. These are greatly appreciated. See appendix.

3. We have been working with BMS member Lin Ducker, who is a nutritionist, to design a balanced family parcel, comprising local staple foods. We are delivering one hundred of these today to remote villages that have not yet received food aid. We will further refine the parcel as we get feedback. See appendix for more detail.

4. We installed water filtration for a community kitchen in Oulad Berhil, an hour north of Taroudant, that will serve over 30,000 meals each day.

While appreciating the real need for support in the earthquake zone, it is helpful to have a nuanced understanding of the situation of the ground as life in Marrakech has largely returned to normal. The IMF / World bank has confirmed that its annual general meeting will go ahead here from the 12th October, tourists are welcome, in fact they are essential.

Thank you again for your support, together we are making a real difference. Every donation helps, just £11.20 will pay for a family food hamper.

Mike Wood, Chair

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Appendix

BMS support today has instilled great peace amongst the families who have received the wooden slats today. The weather is changing and there was great unease with fears of rain storms causing mudslides and affecting the stability of the tents.

Caloric value of the BMS family hamper which we are trialling:
5kg flour 18,200
1 lt vegetable oil 828
1 kg cooked lentils 1,760
1 kg cookwhite beans 1,390
1 kg fave beans 1,710
2 kg sugar 3,870
120g condensed tomatoes 36 cal
250g sardines/tomato sauce 652 cal
Total 28,446 calories

Todays wholesale cost per hamper 141 dirhams / £11.20

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"For sheer delight there is nothing like altitude; it gives one the thrill of adventure
and enlarges the world in which you live," Irving Mather (1892-1966)

4WD Sprinter and 5 other 4x4's heading into Morocco on Monday, carrying what we can. John Horne also has some requirements that need support.

We are taking beanie's/gloves/tents/blankets plus school stationary for the next phase

I rode up the Tizi n Test road today. If it wasn’t for the increasingly larger tent encampments as you head south into the hills, you’d think the damage was just the result of a big storm – viewed from the roadside at least. The broken up section of the R203 south of Ouirgane felt especially rough, maybe from masses of truck traffic.
Even as far as Ijoukak you might miss the damage if you’d not been here before. But just just 2km up the road Talat Ait Yacoub where the fuel station is, looked like it had been bombed. Quite shocking. The fuel is still serving in front of the collapsed garage building and there’s an army camp alongside.
I had a chat with Housseine at the nearby auberge we use. All along his side road tents are crammed in by the stream or on plots wherever there is flat space. His gite is largely intact (mostly fallen plaster) but they can’t rebuild until a govt inspector views and approves a payout. As it is he tells me there is a shortage of cement. He described the motion of the original quake as circular rather than to and fro, and even last night there were small aftershocks. So like many people, his family still sleep in a tent in their car park.
I rode over the top to Igli, taking a quick look at the direct track over to Ouneine.
Updated MH20/21 page: https://sahara-overland.com/2018/04/...ew-route-mh20/
As expected, just 50m from the t/o for the steep north side ascent two big boulders + rubble would block a car; a bike might get over the rubble until the next blockage, or the one after that. This is a low priority track that passes no villages, just a mast near the pass. All these places are around 20km from the epicentre.
Carrying on east via the bypass to the Ouneine-Igli road junction, van sized boulders have fallen on to the road with more encampments round the many small villages, some at 2000m (pic). And yet still the kids play and wave! But perhaps because these remote places were served by convoys of relief vehicles, the track to the junction is in unusually good condition and passable with anything.
Now at the new auberge in Tazolt (north of Askaoun), and even this building, 90 track kms from Ijk, has big cracks on the upper floors, but only a couple of tents visible in this village. So pistes that serve villages will be cleared and maybe even improved, tracks that don’t may be left for another time.

Added: A few days later came up the Test R203 from the south junction.
Stopped at a new CP about 8km in, don't know if just from boredom/'because they could'.
Had I said I was going to Marrakech I'm sure they'd had let me through.
I soon took a piste eastwards.

Attached Thumbnails

 

 

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Morocco Overland 4 (2025) • Trans Morocco Trail

I've not been along the test this autumn, but we were around Askaoun last weekend and had more of a walk around Marrakech at the weekend. More damage arounds the souks than I had seen earlier in September. The tents in the villages were a stark reminder of a hard winter to come.

From what I hear the need now is for building materials and construction equipment rather than clothing/food etc which has been flooding in.

Don't think its been mentioned here yet, but any aid being brought into Morocco needs permission from the government obtained by a local Association. The Association then needs to send the completed paperwork to the carriers.