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Comment by formvoltron | Hacker News Reader

I spend a lot of time in Morocco. I always wondered what an earthquake might do because they quite often build with simple cinderblock. The government actually sort of encourages it because official land ownership is not the norm and sometimes the government will raze buildings that were built without proper permits. Of course people couldn't really afford earthquake proof houses anyways. Sad situation all around. Was planning to go this winter, but I don't want to be a tourist in the midst of calamity.

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Just putting out there that it might still be a good time to go:

I can’t speak to Morocco, but a number of SE Asian places derive significant incomes from tourism — and losing that after natural disasters compounds the problem.

There’s a possibility that visiting Morocco is bringing needed money into their community (as long as you’re not going to areas short on supplies). You need money to rebuild.

And tourism is ~7% of Morocco’s GDP (as of a few years ago).

https://www.oecd-ilibrary.org/sites/e3197856-en/index.html?i...

In 1960 an earthquake in Agadir claimed almost half of the city's population. That gives you an idea about how badly prepared they were.

City has been rebuild (except from the hill were you can see the memorial words at night) supposedly under earthquake sagety norms but that isn't the case of the rest of the country.

Please come. Tourism is the main livelihood for many Moroccans, and the areas badly affected are mostly rural.

The best thing you can do to support us is to keep your plans :)

> Was planning to go this winter, but I don't want to be a tourist in the midst of calamity.

I'm very conflicted on this one, it seems like this is the intuition I (along with a lot of people) want to reach for but is that actually the most helpful thing?

No, life goes on and it's not a calamity. It's pretty bad, but we'll have another crisis if tourism goes down because of the bad publicity of the earthquake.

For many Moroccans, welcoming tourists is their livelihoods. The best thing you can do to support them is to keep your plans in place.

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