My name is Lily Maddon and I'm a proud Arunda Bunjelung Calcottin woman from Gadighl Country. The Daily oz acknowledges that this podcast is recorded on the lands of the Gadighl people and pays respect to all Aboriginal and Torres Straight Island and nations. We pay our respects to the first peoples of these countries, both past and present.
Good morning and welcome to the Daily os It's Tuesday, the twelfth of September. I'm Sam, I'm Zara. Over the weekend, a six point eight magnitude earthquake struck Morocco. It was the country's strongest quake in over a century.
Rescue teams in Morocco are desperately trying to reach remote villages close to the epicenter of the earthquake in the isolated High Atlas Mountain Range.
I'm talking in a really quiet voice because they're listening out to see if there are any signs of life. But really hope is fading extremely quickly.
A growing national death doll has now climbed above two thousands. The destruction is not concentrated in a single area. It is spread through villages like this, and the roads to get here are winding, narrow and treacherous. In some places they are blocked, but the rescue continues.
Nonetheless, we've been warned that the deathtop, which is already in the thousands, could increase significantly. Many are still missing and feared trapped beneath the rubble, and a huge and complex rescue effort is underway in a race to find survivors for first rs. Some big movement on the federal government's housing bill.
That's right. The Greens have announced support for the federal government's Housing bill after Labour pledged a further one billion dollars in short term social housing funding. So we spoke a number of times on this podcast about the fact that the Greens were refusing to support the bill, but yesterday we have a big press conference and that has now changed. The bill is now expected to pass and we'll create a ten billion dollar investment fund for social and affordable housing.
Almost five thousand vapes have been seized in South Australia. Health authorities confiscated the vapes from one hundred and eighty businesses, some of which were found hidden in pizza boxes. Over ninety percent of the vapes contains nicotine, making them illegal for sale.
Novak Djokovic has won the US Open, which now means he has won twenty four Grand Slam titles, making him equal with Australian Margaret Court. The thirty six year old player took three hours and sixteen minutes to defeat Russian Danil Medvedev in three sets. Djokovic is now the first men's tennis champ to win three of the four Grand Slams in a single season in three separate years, after winning the Australian Open and French Open.
And today's good news, Australian Josh Giddy has been named as one of the best young basketball players in the whole world. The twenty year old has been named the first ever wander Rising Star of the Basketball World Cup. An that's a title given to the tournament's most promising
young player. When he's not representing Australia wearing the Boomers, Josey Giddy plays for the NBA's Oklahoma City thunder So Late on Friday night local time and earthquakes struck Morocco and the worst of it was felt in parts of the Atlas Mountains, which is about seventy kilometers from the city of Marrakesh. As it stands, more than two thousand people have died. Entire villages have been destroyed, and major
historical sites have been damaged. Now, the force of this quake was so significant that tremors were felt as far away as Portugal. Now emergency workers are struggling to deliver aid to cut off remote villages, and there's a race against the clock to rescue as many people as possible that are still trapped beneath the rubble.
We got an alert on Saturday morning local time and it said that, you know, this earthquake had happened. And then what felt like minutes later, we were getting news alerts saying that, you know, hundreds of people had died, and then hours later it was that thousands of people had died. And I mean, I think that so often these numbers are beyond comprehension, and so I'm really eager to understand how an earthquake like this can be so destructive, how it can lead to such a high loss of human life.
Well, yeah, it's the biggest earthquake to Morocco in one hundred and twenty years. And I think in terms of trying to answer that question of why it was so destructive. There is something to be learned from how shallow the earthquake was. It was ten to twenty kilometers beneath the surface.
So the deeper it is, the less destructive. In theory, an earthquake should.
Be exactly the closer it is to our surface level of the Earth, the more that we're going to feel it. It also means that the more buildings collapse and therefore the more casualties. But on top of all of that, you have to remember as well that the homes in the mountains are mostly built with mud bricks and that makes them particularly susceptible to destruction.
So is Morocco on a fault line because I think you mentioned before that this was the worst earthquake in over a century in Morocco, so presumably they've had earthquakes.
Before they have. But the Atlas Mountains were actually formed as a direct result of Europe and Africa colliding. That's why there's a mountainous range, So they'd sit specifically on the border of two plates, and that is what makes the area an earthquake zone. That being said, though earthquakes of this magnitude are rare, in Morocco, and the center of the quake, which is high in those mountain ranges, was actually a long way from the tectonic plate boundary.
Two thousand and four was the last time that Morocco experienced a quake anywhere near this level. And then a six point four magnitude earthquake claimed more than six hundred lives.
So you said that the epicenter was in the mountains, and the hardest hit areas are rural villages. I imagine that that would greatly impact the ability for a rescue operation to take place.
It's proving to be a huge challenge in the recovery efforts just where the site is, so emergency workers are really struggling to deliver aid to cut off communities. So it's not even then about trying to get people out of the rubble. It's also about trying to support people who are just trying to survive, and that includes things like delivering food and water, and their job became even
harder when there was an after shock. So there was a four point five magnitude earthquake that rattled the exact same region, and what that is all meant is that many residents are now sleeping outside their homes because the fear there is that the after shocks will lead to further disruction. Whilst there are buildings still standing, a lot of those buildings now are very unstable.
I think that's an important thing to think about when we're talking about a natural disaster of this degree, is that there's the imminent aftermath, the tremendous loss of life, the huge impact on infrastructure. But really it's also as much about the weeks and the months after as it is about the days after, because.
Things like electricity grids and sewage systems and infrastructure.
And we saw in Turky earlier this year that the story only kept unfolding. Can we expect to see survivors still pulled from the rubble in the coming days or have Moroccan authorities based said they've done everything they can.
No, we're still very much in that race against the clock kind of acute stage of this disaster. So rescue teams are trying their best to get to those areas to still rescue people buried, but they're having to contend with rocks blocking the roads in the mountains, and as a result, we've actually seen locals themselves digging through the rubble, however they can. They're using shovels, they're using their hands, just trying to find anyone who could still be alive.
I know that there was also some damage to historical sites in Marrakesh.
Right, particularly the Old Quarter in Marrakesh. So the Old Quarter dates back to the eleventh century and it suffered extensive damage. There are photos that have emerged of the Old Quarter, which itself is the NESCo Heritage Site, that show significant damage and destroyed buildings. And then if we move higher up the mountains, there's a twelfth century mosque that's been destroyed as well.
I read in an article that the World's Health Organization said that more than three hundred thousand people had been affected by the disaster. I presume then that a disaster of this scale has prompted international response.
Right, so, Morocco is accepted aid from the UK, Spain, Qatar, and the US, And what that aid actually looks like is hundreds of search and rescue experts as well as medical personnel, humanitarian assistants and even some sniffer dogs. There are many other countries who have pledged support par are yet to deliver it, and that list includes France, Israel, Algeria and even Turkia who are still recovering themselves from
the earthquake that struck the country in February. And then if we look to international organizations, the UN and the World Bank have both offered support.
And then what about Australia. I think that when you feel so geographically far and so helpless watching or reading or listening to news about Morocco, what's our government saying?
So? Foreign Minister Penny Wong posted on social media over the weekends. She said there had been a devastating loss of life and destruction of property. The Department of Foreign Affairs said it wasn't aware yet if any Ozzie had been injured in the quake, and the Australian government has not yet made an official announcement on what assistance it might offer.
Between the death toll and the thousands and thousands of displaced locals who are now without a home, this is one of those stories that you just can't help but feel so saddened by. There is no silver lining to this. It is news that we need to know, but it doesn't make it any less horrific to read about or to listen to. But There will be a lot more information in the coming days as the search continues, and will continue to bring you that news as it comes.
Thanks for joining us today on the Daily Odds. If there is a topic that you would like us to unpack or explain, you can head to Spotify where there is a question box and you can write exactly what it is that you want simplified. We will endeavor to get to all of those suggestions, but until then, have a great day.