Today we learned that an 18-year-old man died on Friday, following the collapse of a house ceiling in the Fès Medina. The fatality happened in the Gzira district. Our investigations discovered there were only two people living in the house at the time and the second person escaped without injury. Our information suggests that the house was in a very bad condition before the tragic accident.
According to a report carried by Maghreb Arabe Presse the collapse of the ceiling was probably caused by the dilapidated state of the house and the torrential rains that hit the city the previous day.
Unfortunately the same news agency repeated the same incorrect figures mentioned in parliament by the Moroccan Minister Delegate for Housing, Taoufik Hjira, of some 7,500 old buildings, including 2,000 intra muros houses, being due to collapse in the Medina of Fès. While four agreements, amounting to USD 33Mn, were signed in 2004 to solve this problem, the repeated use of incorrect figures gives the wrong picture of the state of the Medina houses.
In response to a request for accurate figures, ADER (the main agency in Fès dealing with restoration) who is responsible for emergency action in the Medina, says that of the 9000 traditional houses in the Medina about 400 are in very serious condition, and about 100 of those are so dangerous that they can no longer be inhabited. There are 1000-2000 houses that have structural problems that need attention, but as David Amster pointed out in his email to The View from Fez, "that's not the same as being in danger of collapse."
Tags: Morocco Fes, Maghreb news
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