A powerful earthquake in Morocco has killed more than 1,000 people and injured hundreds more, the country’s deadliest in more than six decades, toppling houses in remote mountain villages where rescuers dug through rubble for survivors.
The quake struck Morocco’s High Atlas mountains late on Friday night, damaging historic buildings in Marrakech, the nearest city to the epicentre, while the most badly affected areas were in the mountains nearby.
The Interior Ministry said 1,037 people had been killed and another 672 injured by the quake, gauged by the US Geological Survey at a magnitude of 6.8 with an epicentre some 72km southwest of Marrakech.
Morocco earthquake
The quake, which hit at around 11pm local time, affected a sweep of the High Atlas mountain range.
Tremors were felt as far away as Huelva and Jaen in Andalucia in southern Spain, Spanish television RTVE reported.
It was Morocco’s deadliest earthquake since 1960 when a quake was estimated to have killed at least 12,000 people, according to the US Geological Survey.
At a depth of 18.5km, experts said this was an unusually large tremor for the area.
Moroccan authorities launched a large-scale operation to deliver aid to the areas affected by the earthquake.
At the El Arjate Civil Protection warehouse in Salé (Rabat twin city), seven trucks loaded with blankets, camp beds and lighting equipment have left the headquarters to deliver aid to the populations of the disaster areas.
Firefighters have worked tirelessly from the early hours of Saturday, loading semi-trailers to deliver aid as quickly as possible to the populations affected by the earthquake.
In addition to the Civil Protection of El Arjate, other Civil Protection units from several regions of the Kingdom are in a race against time to provide aid to the victims.
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