Chloe Cordeiro was sitting in her apartment in Gueliz, a neighborhood in the Moroccan city of Marrakesh, chatting with two of her friends on FaceTime when she began to feel the ground beneath her shake.

It started off slowly, but quickly built up until her whole apartment building began to violently sway. It lasted for about 15 to 30 seconds, and shortly after, Cordeiro began to hear her neighbors yell.

The Northeastern junior knew something big was happening, so she ended her chat with her friends and called her parents.

“I was just sitting under a doorway tearing up,” she says.

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Photo by AP Photo/Mosa’ab Elshamy