Huge devastation found in remote regions after Morocco quake
With Nick Beake and Alice Cuddy reporting from the Atlas Mountains and Anna Holligan in Marrakesh
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With Nick Beake and Alice Cuddy reporting from the Atlas Mountains and Anna Holligan in Marrakesh
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Edited by Henri Astier
All times stated are UK
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Challenges facing rescue workers are huge - aid organisation
Reaching remote villages and pulling people from the rubble of buildings remains an "absolute priority", an aid worker has told the BBC.
Caroline Holt of the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent added that the challenges facing rescuers were huge.
Heavy machinery is needed to clear routes to the worst-affected communities in the Atlas Mountains, she added.
What's the latest?
For anyone just joining us, or in need of a catch-up, here's a quick summary:
Watch: BBC reporter in quake-hit village
The BBC's Nick Beake has reached the remote mountain village of Amizmiz, where at least 150 people are estimated to have died in Friday's earthquake.
You can watch his report on the devastation here:
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'Everything came down on them'
As we mentioned slightly earlier, we're now hearing that troops have cleared one of the main roads to Asni, a small town in the High Atlas mountains that was one of the worst hit.
Rockfalls on the narrow, winding roads had made it hard for relief workers to reach affected villages.
One local told the BBC the blockages were making it hard to locate people.
Another local, a British journalist who lives near Asni, said there were rocks all over the road.
She also described how many of the older, hand-built houses had just fallen apart.
"These houses, they're all built from compressed clay which you take two straw pallets, put a wall in-between, tamp it down with shovels, put water on it, let it harden and put another row up.
"They have collapsed, killing people."
'My family has nothing left'
Hajar Chaffag
BBC Africa
A woman in Morocco's Agadir city, along the southern Atlantic coast, has told the BBC that she lost four relatives in the earthquake that hit their village in the High Atlas Mountains.
Hakima said neighbours pulled them out of the rubble of their homes in Msouna village.
"My family has lost their homes, their belongings - they have nothing left," Hakima said.
She described the situation as "catastrophic", and said no aid had yet reached Msouna and nearby villages.
Aid pledged from countries and groups
Several countries have already offered aid to Morocco including Italy, Spain, France and the US.
The International Red Cross has warned though that it could take potentially years to repair the devastated villages and old city centres.
"We are counting on a response that will take months, if not years," said Hossam Elsharkawi, the organisation's Middle East and North Africa director.
The Red Cross has already pledged to releasing one million Swiss francs (£900,000; $1.1 million) from the organisation's Disaster Response Emergency Fund to support the mission.
Army clears road to one of worst-affected areas
Moroccan senator and former tourism minister Lahcen Haddad has told the BBC that rescue efforts in small remote villages have been hampered by the difficult terrain of the High Atlas mountains.
He said buildings date back "centuries and centuries, some of them perched on mountains".
Nevertheless, rescue teams - including the army - have played a "very heroic role" to reach scores of villages, and "as they get to the communities, as they try to remove the rubble, they find survivors, they find dead", Haddad said.
The Moroccan army has now cleared one of the main roads to the areas worst affected by Friday's earthquake, allowing vital assistance to reach people.
Haddad expressed the hope that many more survivors would be found, but said he feared that the death toll would probably rise.
He said local authorities were currently coping, but international help may be needed later.
Neighbouring Spain to send rescuers immediately
Spain has announced it will send 65 specialist workers to assist in the rescue mission in neighbouring Morocco.
Spain is the closest European country to the northern African country. Madrid had received a request for help from Rabat this morning, the foreign minister said.
"It is a sign of Spanish solidarity and of the sense of friendship which unites the people of Spain with the people of Morocco," said Jose Manuel Albares.
"It will be as much aid as Morocco needs. At first what we are setting in motion are search and rescue teams because it is urgent to try to find the greatest number of people alive to save them.
"When it is time for reconstruction, Spanish aid will also be present."
'All we could think was to run'
Our reporters on the ground have heard from many explaining what they felt at the time of the quake.
Yousef At Ali told the BBC he was sitting outside with his friends in Marrakesh when "dust fell from the sky".
In the city, people are also stranded with no working power in their homes, no phone signal and no internet.
For a second night in a row, people took to camping outdoors, in open-air spaces away from narrow alleys and old buildings which they fear may still be unstable.
Cats roam around the rubble
Anna Holligan
Reporting from Marrakesh
Outside the Jemaa el-Fnaa mosque in the heart of the historic city, cats roam around the rubble of the minaret.
The crumbled bricks have been swept into piles - an attempt to bring some order to the chaos.
Damage in the High Atlas range
We've mentioned the impact being felt hardest in the mountains outside Marrakesh.
In the High Atlas range, where the epicentre of the quake was, settlements are remote and villages scattered along winding roads. The quake sparked landslides in the rugged terrain - the debris is now blocking some parts of the roads.
Many, many homes have also crumbled. We don't have the numbers of damaged dwellings yet but reports from remote communities reflect locals' anguish.
Many people are thought to still be buried under collapsed buildings.
Watch: Morocco's football team donates blood
Members of Morocco's national football team have been donated blood in solidarity with victims of the earthquake, the team says on X.
It follows an appeal from health officials for blood donations to help people injured in the earthquake.
You can watch a video of the team donating blood here:
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At least 300,000 affected in Marrakesh
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 OCHA was "closely monitoring the situation and stands ready to support".
In an earlier statement, the UN said it was ready to "assist the government of Morocco in its efforts to assist the impacted population".
Watch: Piles of rubble, twisted metal and bicycles in famous square
One of our reporters in the field, Anna Holligan, takes a look at what is left of the mosque of the Jemaa el-Fnaa square, in Marrakesh.
Rubble from the tower - where the Friday call to prayer speaker is normally issued - landed on a nearby car bonnet.
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'People are still under the rocks'- Marrakesh resident
A local in Marrakesh has described to the BBC how in the old walled city, so many things have been destroyed.
"In the old medina, most of (the) homes are destroyed, the most shops, almost everything. The medina is something else now," says Latifa.
But it's not just the city, she said, noting the worst hit areas were the villages beyond Marrakesh where so many are still yet to receive help.
Rural buildings highly vulnerable to quakes
Rescuers and distraught relatives are still racing to find survivors trapped in the rubble of flattened villages.
In these poorer, rural areas south of Marrakesh, many homes are hand-built or constructed cheaply. Most buildings are made from mud bricks - unable to withstand a strong 6.8 magnitude earthquake.
We also saw the damage in Marrakesh especially in the walled old city, the medina. Centuries-old buildings have crumbled, there's widespread debris and red dust.
But the worst damage has occurred in the rural parts outside Marrakesh. The death toll is currently highest in the Haouz region, which includes sections of the High Atlas Mountains.
Highest death toll at epicentre of quake
The highest number of deaths from the earthquake in Morocco has been reported in Al-Haouz province, where its epicentre was located, according to the latest official figures.
Almost 1,300 deaths have so far been reported in the province, followed by more than 450 in the province of Taroudant.
In total, at least 2,012 people have died and 2,059 have been injured in the earthquake, which has wiped out entire villages in rural areas.
Morning summary
It's early morning in Morocco and across large swathes of the country, locals are grappling with the damage from Friday night's 6.8 magnitude earthquake.
Families still aren't sure when it'll be safe to go home
Anna Holligan
Reporting from Marrakesh
Piles of bricks and rubble surround the Jemaa el-Fna mosque in the heart of the Medina.
The minaret has fallen, some of rubble has crushed the bonnet of a car and skinny stray cats are roaming around the wreckage.
A few metres away, business owners are sweeping the dust-covered streets outside their cafes.
As the sun came up, families who fled to open spaces in fear of aftershocks packed up their blankets. They still aren’t sure when it’ll be safe to go home.
'I've lost everything'
As our earlier post made clear, many people living in isolated villages around the High Atlas Mountains - close to the quake's epicentre - have lost loved ones.
Lahcen was inconsolable after his wife and four children died 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 have been dug on a hill in the village to bury the dead. Hasna, another resident in the area, said "the whole village is mourning its children".