Morocco quake toll tops 1000 as rescuers pick through rubble with bare hands

Moroccan earthquake survivors have huddled for a night in the open on the High Atlas Mountains, a day after the country’s deadliest quake in more than six decades killed more than 1300 people and laid waste to villages, Azernews reports, citing foreign media outlet.

Neighbours were still searching for survivors buried on the slopes, where houses of mud brick, stone and rough wood were cracked open and mosque minarets toppled by the quake that struck late on Friday.

The historic old city of Marrakech also suffered extensive damage.

The Interior Ministry said 1305 people had been killed and 1832 injured by the quake, gauged by Morocco’s National Seismic Monitoring and Alert Network at a magnitude of 7 and by the US Geological Survey as 6.8 with an epicentre 72km southwest of Marrakech.

In the village of Amizmiz near the epicentre, rescue workers picked through rubble with their bare hands.

Fallen masonry blocked narrow streets.

Outside a hospital, about 10 bodies lay covered in blankets as grieving relatives stood nearby.

“When I felt the earth shaking beneath my feet and the house leaning, I rushed to get my kids out. But my neighbours couldn’t,” Mohamed Azaw said.

“Unfortunately no one was found alive in that family. The father and son were found dead and they are still looking for the mother and the daughter.”

Rescuers stood atop the pancaked floors of one building in Amizmiz, bits of carpet and furniture protruding from the rubble.

A long queue formed outside the only open shop as people sought supplies.

Underlining the challenges facing rescuers, fallen boulders blocked a road from Amizmiz to a nearby village.

Nearly all the houses in the area of Asni, 40km south of Marrakech, were damaged, and villagers were preparing to spend the night outside.

Food was in short supply as roofs had collapsed on kitchens, villager Mohamed Ouhammo said.

Montasir Itri, a resident of Asni, said the search was on for survivors.

“Our neighbours are under the rubble and people are working hard to rescue them using available means in the village,” he said.

The village of Tansghart in the Ansi area, on the side of a valley where the road from Marrakech rises up into the High Atlas, was the worst hit of any Reuters saw.

Its once-pretty houses, clinging to a steep hillside, were cracked open by the shaking ground.

Those still standing were missing chunks of wall or plaster.

Two mosque minarets had fallen.

Abdellatif Ait Bella, a labourer, lay on the ground, barely able to move or speak, his head bandaged from wounds caused by falling debris.

“We have no house to take him to and have had no food since yesterday,” said his wife Saida Bodchich, fearing for the future of their family of six with their sole breadwinner so badly hurt.

“We can rely on nobody but God.”

The village is already mourning ten deaths including two teenage girls, an inhabitant said.

Tremors were felt as far away as Huelva and Jaen in southern Spain.

The World Health Organisation said more than 300,000 people were affected in Marrakech and surrounding areas.

Street camera footage in Marrakech showed the moment the earth began to shake as men suddenly looked around and jumped up, and others ran for shelter into an alleyway and then fled as dust and debris tumbled around them.

In the heart of the old city, a UNESCO World Heritage site, a mosque minaret had fallen in Jemaa al-Fna Square.

Some houses in the tightly packed old city collapsed and people used their hands to remove debris while they waited for heavy equipment, resident Id Waaziz Hassan said.

Morocco declared three days of mourning, during which the country’s flag will be flown at half staff, the royal court said on Saturday.

The Moroccan armed forces will deploy rescue teams to provide affected areas with clean drinking water, food supplies, tents and blankets, it added.