Sawt Falasteen - Morocco says evacuated 140,000 people due to severe weather

Authorities have not announced any casualties, and the national weather service forecast heavy rains and strong winds to continue on Thursday and Friday across the north.

The severe weather came after Morocco struggled with seven consecutive years of drought.

The evacuations began last Friday and mainly concerned Larache province, where the city of Ksar El Kebir -- about 100 kilometres (60 miles) south of Tangier -- has seen significant flooding.

Some residents including children and elderly people were stranded on rooftops before being rescued, at times in small boats.

In Sidi Kacem province, around 120 kilometres south of Ksar El Kebir, more than 10,000 people were rescued, some by helicopter, as floodwaters inundated roads and farmland.

AFP images showed Sidi Kacem residents struggling to move through muddy floodwaters, sometimes using partly submerged tractors or motorbikes.

Other people were evacuated in areas near Oued Loukos, a major river flowing into the Atlantic Ocean.

In December, 37 people were killed in sudden floods in Safi, in Morocco's deadliest weather-related disaster in the past decade.

In recent weeks, severe weather and flooding in neighbouring Algeria killed two people, including a child.

In Tunisia, at least five people died, with others still missing, after the country saw its heaviest rainfall in over 70 years last month.

G.AbuGhazaleh--SF-PST