Alexandra Fouché
Live reporter

Image source, EPA

We will be pausing our live coverage of events in Morocco shortly, thank you for joining us.

Before we go, let's take a look at what's happened over the last few hours:

• The death toll from the quake has gone up to 1,037, with some 1,200 injured in the 6.8-magnitude earthquake which struck overnight, officials say
• The quake was felt throughout the country, but most severely in Marrakesh, with many victims believed to be in remote villages in the nearby High Atlas Mountains, near the quake's epicentre
• Many people are still on the streets, waiting to be sure their houses are safe before going back in
• Along with many countries offering help, Algeria has said it was ready to open its airspace in support of Morocco, despite breaking off ties with its neighbour two years ago

Today's coverage was brought to you by our writers Ece Göksedef, Laurence Peter, Maria Zaccaro and Mattea Bubalo. We were also joined by our colleague Megan Fisher on the video desk. The page was edited by James FitzGerald, Henri Astier, Emily McGarvey and me.

You can keep up to date with the latest news from Morocco with our news story here.

More than 300,000 people in Marrakesh and its outskirts have been affected by the powerful earthquake that hit Morocco, the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) says.

It said, external OCHA was "closely monitoring the situation and stands ready to support".

In an earlier statement, external, the UN said it was ready to "assist the government of Morocco in its efforts to assist the impacted population".

Nick Beake
Reporting from Marrakesh

We’re driving through the winding streets of the Old City, where there is rubble around many corners.

Streets are sealed off and the police are doing their best to manage the traffic, amid a cacophony of moped horns.

Some families pass us on foot - with their possessions piled up on shopping trolleys.

Many are now camping out in the open, including dozens resting on the grass outside the Royal Palace.

They are fearful to return to their homes, with the prospect of more aftershocks.

Other parts of the city are though busy and bustling - with cafes full.

But in many remote places - up into the Atlas Mountains - there will not be this semblance of normality, for it is in these communities where most have lost their lives.

There will be three days of national mourning in Morocco after the overnight earthquake that killed more than 1,000 people, according to an announcement from the country's royal palace.

The decision follows a meeting discussing the disaster, chaired by King Mohamed VI.

"Three days of national mourning have been decided, with flags to fly at half-mast on all public buildings," a statement published by the news agency MAP read.

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

Image source, Getty Images

Many people living in isolated villages around the High Atlas mountains, close to the quake's epicentre, have lost loved ones.

Lahcen is one of them, and he is inconsolable after losing his wife and four children in the disaster.

"I've lost everything," he tells AFP. I can't do anything right now, I just want to get away from the world and mourn."

Graves are being dug on a hill in the village to bury the dead. Hasna, another resident in the area, says "the whole village is mourning its children".

"Many of my neighbours lost loved ones. The pain is indescribable."

The response effort to the earthquake could take years due to the level of devastation, the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC) has said.

“We are mobilising now to support the Moroccan Red Crescent," Hossam Elsharkawi, IFRC's regional director for the Middle East and North Africa said.

"This will not be a week or two of response... we are looking at many months if not years of response.”

Caroline Holt, operations director for the IFRC, said the next 24 to 48 hours will be critical in terms of saving lives.

"Search and rescue efforts will be prioritised in parallel, of course, with making sure that those that we know have survived are taken care of," she said.

Image source, Getty Images

Earlier we heard from people in Morocco who have shared what they experienced when the quake struck last night.

Marrakesh resident Mina Metioui said that, in the city, the noise sounded like "a fighter jet", getting louder and louder.

"The next thing I see, my room is moving, pictures, frames started falling off the wall," she told BBC News. "You know, things just started dropping off. That's when I realised we're going through some sort of an earthquake.

Montasir Itri, who lives in the mountain village of Asni, close to the epicentre, told Reuters: "Our neighbours are under the rubble and people are working hard to rescue them using available means in the village."

Houda Outassaf had been walking around Jemaa el-Fna Square in Marrakesh when he felt the ground start to shake.

"I have at least 10 members of my family who died... I can hardly believe it, as I was with them no more than two days ago," he told AFP.

Image source, Adam Smith

Adam Smith, 23, and his girlfriend, 22, from Sheffield, are on holiday in Marrakech. They’re due to fly home on Monday. He said the hotel they're staying at was “shaken to the core” during the quake.

“We’re relatively safe now. Things are stable compared to last night," he told the BBC.

He said initially it was very scary when the tremor first hit. "We were winding down to go to sleep, the glass was vibrating, we grabbed some essential items and ran outside."

He said they, along with other guests, were near the entrance of the hotel when the second tremor hit.

"We desperately searched for English speakers but we only found a couple of people who spoke broken English. We waited to see if the building would be stable and eventually ran in to retrieve medication and bedding as we faced the prospect of sleeping in the car park for the evening."

Image source, Adam Smith

Hajar Chaffag
BBC Africa

Image source, EPA

Chaimae, a Moroccan national residing in London, described her initial panic upon learning of the recent earthquake in Morocco.

The majority of her relatives live in and around Rabat, the nation's capital, prompting her to closely follow the situation. Despite the epicentre being near Marrakesh, most recorded casualties occurred in regions with inadequate infrastructure.

Chaimae's primary concern was for her family in the coastal town of Temara, just south of Rabat. She explained: "The housing there is often poorly structured, which heightened my worries."

On Facebook, within a group dedicated to the Moroccan community in the UK, members quickly gathered in the early morning hours to check on each other's well-being

One member posted, "Is everyone okay?" while another shared the news with the message, "Check in on your families in Morocco. I hope everyone is safe." Across social media, people are uniting to share donation links and enquire about charitable organisations aiding the cause.

The Moroccan community in the UK anxiously awaits updates from their homeland as the aftermath of the earthquake continues to unfold.

Journalist Alice Morrison has been speaking to the BBC from the Atlas Mountains where a landslide caused by the quake has blocked many roads.

"It's apocalyptic," she says. "There are rocks everywhere, there are massive holes, there's actually a crack right in front of my feet which is taking away half of the road."

There isn't any electricity or phone signal in her village, she adds, so she's had to cycle 16km (10 miles) just to phone her mum.

It has been more than 17 hours since the earthquake struck, and the death toll continues to rise.

Here is what we know so far:

• A strong 6.8 magnitude earthquake struck central Morocco overnight, the death toll is now at 1,037, with more than 1,200 people injured
• The quake's epicentre was in the High Atlas Mountains, 71km (44 miles) south-west of Marrakesh, and many of the victims are thought to be in remote villages nearby

• Many people are still on the streets, too afraid to go back into their homes for fear of more tremors
• Authorities have called on residents to donate blood as the hospitals have seen an influx of injured people
• In Marrakesh some buildings have collapsed and the damage is severe in parts of the Medina, a Unesco World Heritage site
• World leaders including Britain's Rishi Sunak and US President Joe Biden offered help to Morocco

Marrakesh is famous for its souks, the old bazaars, and there are many riads (local hotels) housed around them in the historic city walls.

The souks are a tourist attraction as well as a place for locals to shop, held in narrow alleys and sometimes wider streets surrounded by old buildings.

These pictures are taken near a souk in Marrakesh, near the Bab Laksour gate, after the earthquake.

Image source, Melissa Davis

Image source, Melissa Davis

Image source, Melissa Davis

There are questions over whether the African Cup of Nations qualifier between Congo and the Gambia which is due to be held in Marrakesh on Sunday will go ahead.

Saturday's qualifier between Morocco and Liberia, which was due to take place in Agadir - some 260km (160 miles) away from the quake's epicentre - has already been called off.

The coaches of both teams due to play on Sunday say their players have been traumatised by the disaster, but have been told they must go ahead with their match, Reuters news agency reports.

“We have been told our match on Sunday must go ahead. It’s quite strange that the Morocco game is off, but ours is not,” Gambia coach Tom Saintfiet told Reuters.

The Confederation of African Football is in talks with the Moroccan FA about whether the game will take place.

Sunday's game, which was due to decide who goes through to next year's Afcon finals in the Ivory Coast, is being played in Marrakesh because The Gambia's stadium was deemed unfit to host internationals.

You can read more here.

One of Morocco's most famous squares, Jemaa el Fnaa, was hit in the Marrakesh earthquake.

There are many tourist attractions, historic buildings and popular cafes and restaurants around it.

The historic Jemaa el Fnaa mosque itself partly collapsed last night.

Here you can see the damages it has suffered, especially to its tower.

Image source, EPA-EFE/REX/Shutterstock

Dina Anwar, a reporter for World News Morocco, was in the country's capital, Rabat, when the earthquake hit.

"We were lucky enough in Rabat to be evacuated immediately; unfortunately, it was not the same for other cities. We didn't know what to do, we only knew that we shouldn't be in our houses," she recalls about last night.

She says people around her were panicking, but as a journalist, she was also trying to keep up with what was happening as well as trying to reach out to her loved ones in Agadir, her hometown.

"Communications are definitely impacted, there is an issue with trying to reach everyone. So many old buildings have been destroyed, it is a struggle to try to check on your loved ones."

She says rural areas have been impacted more by the earthquake:

"And the most impacted areas are where we have a lot of old buildings. The toll is linked to the fact that we have infrastructure issues."

Rescue efforts in Morocco are under way as the death toll there has hit 1,037.

Marrakesh is one of the cities worst affected.

But other parts of the country, including hard-to-reach mountain areas, have also been badly hit.

Image source, Getty Images

Image source, Getty Images

Image source, Getty Images

Image source, Reuters

Image source, Getty Images

Image source, Reuters

Amal Saeed
BBC Arabic, reporting from Cairo

Rashid Ben Arabi rushed to his car in Marrakesh minutes after the earthquake struck the city last night. He quickly headed with his wife and one-and-a-half-year-old daughter to the town of Amizmiz - about 56km (35 miles) from Marrakesh - to make sure his father and mother were still alive.

He says the roads were full as everyone fled the city amid complete darkness and a power outage.

"As soon as I entered my town, I saw people in a hysterical state, crying and screaming, and everyone was looking for their families."

Rashid continues: "I saw a man lying on the ground by the rubble of his house; he could hear the screams of his two children trapped under the destroyed building, but he couldn’t do anything to help them; rescue teams hadn’t yet arrived at the scene."

Rashid finally made it to his parents’ house: they were safe and sound, but wrapped in blankets and sleeping in the street, waiting for confirmation from the authorities that their home was safe enough to go back in.

Morocco’s main TV channels have provided blanket coverage of the earthquake and rescue efforts, but have largely refrained from airing footage of the destruction.

One notable exception was a report on state-affiliated 2MTV from al-Haouz province, said to be one of the worst-affected areas. It showed people digging graves to bury victims. A correspondent said 20 deaths had been reported in a village.

State-run al-Aoula aired some “exclusive” footage from Marrakesh, but the programming has largely been comprised of a studio discussion and repeated shots of troops mobilising in Taroudant province.

In neighbouring Algeria, state TV gave low billing to the earthquake - a likely reflection of the poor state of relations between the two countries.

In its morning bulletin, Channel 3 carried the news after a report on a visit by the UN envoy for Western Sahara which criticised Morocco's "occupation" of the region.

Image source, Al-Aoula

Image source, Getty Images

The Gambia coach Tom Saintfiet said he feared a plane had crashed into his hotel after experiencing Friday's devastating Morocco earthquake.

The Belgian football coach and his team are in Marrakesh for Sunday's Africa Cup of Nations qualifier against Congo.

Saintfiet said he had initially heard a lot of noise and thought it was someone knocking on his door.

He said a few seconds later he thought a plane had crashed into the hotel.

He described the experience as "shocking and terrible".

Read the full story here.

Image source, Getty

Algeria has said it is ready to open its airspace for humanitarian and medical flights to Morocco, despite breaking off ties with its neighbour two years ago, Reuters news agency reports.

The two countries have been embroiled in a diplomatic row, and in 2021 Algeria severed ties with Morocco.

The move included suspending direct flights in both directions.

But following the earthquake, Algeria's presidency has said in a statement it is ready to provide humanitarian aid and people "in solidarity with the brotherly Moroccan people, if Morocco requests such help".