Moroccan earthquake survivors huddled for a night in the open on the High Atlas Mountains on Saturday, a day after the country’s deadliest quake in more than six decades killed over 1,300 people and laid waste to villages.
Neighbors 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 1,305 people had been killed and 1,832 injured by the quake, gauged by the U.S. Geological Survey at a magnitude of 6.8 with an epicenter some 72 km (45 miles) southwest of Marrakech.
In the village of Amizmiz near the epicenter, rescue workers picked through rubble with their bare hands. Fallen masonry blocked narrow streets. Outside a hospital, around 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 neighbors couldn’t,” said Mohamed Azaw. “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, some 40 km 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, said villager Mohamed Ouhammo. Montasir Itri, a resident of Asni, said the search was on for survivors.
“If one falls, it will cause others to collapse,” he said. An Australian tourist who gave her name as Tri said the room started shaking. “We just grabbed some clothes and our bags and we raced out,” she said, clutching a pillow under her arm.
The Interior Ministry urged calm, saying in a televised statement that the quake had hit the provinces of Al Haouz, Ouarzazate, Marrakech, Azilal, Chichaoua, and Taroudant.
Montasir Itri, a resident of the mountain village of Asni near the epicenter, said most houses there were damaged. “Our neighbors are under the rubble and people are working hard to rescue them using available means in the village,” he said.
