An aftershock rattled Moroccans on Sunday as they prayed for victims of the nation’s strongest earthquake in more than a century and toiled to rescue survivors while soldiers and workers brought water and supplies to desperate mountain villages in ruins. The disaster killed more than 2,000 people — a number that is expected to rise.
The United Nations estimated that 300,000 people were affected by Friday night’s magnitude 6.8 quake and some Moroccans complained on social networks that the government wasn’t allowing more help from outside. International aid crews were prepared to deploy, but waited for the Morocco government to request their assistance.
Residents swept all the rubble off the main unpaved road leading to town and aid crews began arriving but pleaded for more help.Those left homeless — or fearing more aftershocks — slept outside Saturday, in the streets of the ancient city of Marrakech or under makeshift canopies in Atlas Mountain towns like Moulay Brahim, among the hardest-hit.
Friday’s earthquake toppled buildings not strong enough to withstand such a mighty temblor, trapping people in the rubble and sending others fleeing in terror. A total of 2,012 people were confirmed dead and at least 2,059 more people were injured — 1,404 of them critically, the Interior Ministry reported Saturday.
Aid offers have poured in from around the world and the U.N. said it had a team in Morocco coordinating how international partners can provide support. About 100 teams made up of a total of 3,500 rescuers are registered with a U.N. platform and ready to deploy in Morocco when asked, Rescuers Without Borders said.
People gather as they prepare to bury a person who was killed by the earthquake, in Ouargane village, near Marrakech, Morocco, Saturday, Sept. 9, 2023. A rare, powerful earthquake struck Morocco, sending people racing from their beds into the streets and toppling buildings in mountainous villages and ancient cities not built to withstand such force.
About 45 kilometers northeast of the epicenter, fallen walls exposed the insides of damaged homes, and piles of rubble blocked alleys. In Moulay Brahim, a poor rural community of fewer than 3,000 people, many of the homes made of clay brick and cinder block were destroyed or no longer safe. Rescuers backed by soldiers and police searched for victims in collapsed homes in the remote town of Adassil, near the epicenter. Military vehicles brought in bulldozers and other equipment to clear roads of rocks that crumbled off mountainsides, the state news agency MAP reported. Ambulances took dozens of wounded from the village of Tikht, population 800, to Mohammed VI University Hospital in Marrakech.
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