On: Morocco earthquake kills more than 1,000

[tibbydudeza]

Earthquakes in Africa is rather unusual - we get some but it is more due to underground mining activity than tectonics.

Looking it seems this were the Eurasian plate meets the African plate ???.

[ivan_gammel → tibbydudeza]

Are you sure? Africa is a big continent. There's a lot of seismic activity going on in the eastern part of it, there are volcanoes etc.

[ChrisMarshallNY → ivan_gammel]

I think the Atlas range is still growing. That means plates coming together.

I lived in Morocco (and have visited Marrakesh), but that was in the late 1960s. I also lived in East Africa, where they still have some active vulcanism, but I think things are subsiding.

Morocco had a bad earthquake in Agadir, in 1960. A huge number of folks died. I think it was mostly poor people, who live in rather slapdash shanty towns.