Moroccan television announced that the death toll from the devastating earthquake that struck the country, late on Friday evening, had risen to 1,037 people.

The earthquake occurred on the evening of Friday, September 8, at 11:11, and its magnitude reached 7.2 on the Richter scale.

For his part, the official at the National Institute of Geophysics in Morocco, Nasser Jabour, said that it is “the first time in a century that the center has recorded an earthquake of this magnitude in the country.”

The Moroccan official added that the aftershocks that followed the earthquake were “less powerful and the population may not feel them,” explaining that the tremor was felt in many Moroccan cities within a radius of 400 km.

The earthquake in Morocco brings to mind the earthquake of February 24, 2004, which measured 6.3 on the Richter scale, and whose epicenter occurred in Al Hoceima Governorate, northeast of Rabat, and left 628 dead and severe damage.