IMI N'The rescue crews and bystanders are long gone but the remnants of homes still sit in piles off to the side of the jagged roads.
A year after nearly 3,000 people died when a record earthquake shook communities throughout Morocco's High Atlas, it still looks like a bomb just went off in villages like Imi N'tala, where dozens of residents died when a chunk of mountainside cracked off and flattened the majority of buildings.
Broken bricks, bent rods of rebar and pieces of kitchen floors remain but have been swept into neater piles alongside plastic tents where the displaced now live. Some await funds to reconstruct their homes. Others await approval of their blueprints.
The region shook by the earthquake is full of impoverished agricultural villages like Imi N'tala accessible only via bumpy, unmaintained roads. Associated Press reporters revisited half a dozen of them last week ahead of the one-year anniversary.
In some places, residents awaiting governmental permission have begun reconstructing homes on an ad hoc basis. Elsewhere, people tired of the stuffiness of plastic tents have moved back into their cracked homes or decamped to larger cities, abandoning their old lives.
