Morocco earthquake updates: Rural communities most hard hit by temblor

King Mohammed VI of Morocco thanked Spain, Qatar, the United Kingdom and the United Arab Emirates for sending aid in the wake of the devastating earthquake that hit the country on Friday, state TV has said in a post on social media site X.

Morocco assessed aid needs and considered the importance of coordinating relief efforts before accepting help from the four countries, it added in the post late on Sunday.

A group of Moroccan scholars in the United States has set up a GoFundMe campaign to help villages that have been affected by the earthquake in Morocco.

The scholars said they are working with local NGOs and community leaders to ensure all funds make the biggest, most direct impact to support families.

Here is a GoFundMe two colleagues and I set up to help village associations directly to support families: https://t.co/BB0KNbBQik

— Brahim El GuabIi (@SahraOuld) September 9, 2023

Marrakesh has a rich architectural heritage, and much of it has suffered damage in Friday’s earthquake, the strongest ever to hit the North African country.

Some parts of the 700-hectare (1,730-acre) medina and its network of alleyways saw significant damage, with mounds of rubble and crumpled buildings.

The 12th-century walls that surround the millennium-old city, founded by the Almoravid dynasty, have also been partly disfigured by the quake.

“After a disaster like this, the most important thing is to preserve human life,” said Eric Falt, the Maghreb region director for the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO).

“But we also have to plan immediately for the second phase, which includes rebuilding schools and cultural property affected by the earthquake.”

The UK has said it is deploying search and rescue teams to Morocco.

“Sixty UK search and rescue specialists, four search dogs and rescue equipment deployed to Morocco,” the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO) said in a statement, adding that it was deploying the rescue team on Sunday via two Royal Air Force A400M aircraft.

“Foreign Secretary has spoken to Foreign Minister (Nasser) Bourita and UK remains in close contact with the Moroccan authorities,” the FCDO added.

Spain has sent 86 rescuers and eight search dogs to Morocco following the powerful earthquake that killed more than 2,100 people, responding to a formal request for help from Rabat.

A military plane took off Sunday morning from a base in the northeastern Spanish city of Zaragoza with 56 rescuers and four search dogs bound for Marrakesh, said a defence ministry statement.

The rescue team belongs to Spain’s Military Emergencies Unit (UME), a body of the armed forces created to intervene quickly in emergency situations such as forest fires, floods and earthquakes.

On Sunday evening, another military plane took off from a base in Torrejon de Ardoz near Madrid with 30 rescuers and four search dogs, an interior ministry spokesman said.

Moroccan authorities have accepted offers of support from Spain, Qatar, the United Kingdom and the United Arab Emirates, a government source has said.

“All these offers relate exclusively to the search and relief of disaster victims, through specialised teams,” the source said.

The teams will provide their assistance in a unified and coordinated manner; each team will not work independently of the other, the source added.

The French ambassador to Morocco, Christophe Lecourtier, has told BFM television that Moroccan authorities were “taking into consideration” French offers to send search-and-rescue teams and emergency medical aid.

“We have all reasons to believe that in a few hours or tomorrow this aid will be requested,” he said on Sunday evening.

Amid all the international offers of aid to Morocco, one that stands out is from its neighbour Algeria.

While the two countries share many cultural ties, official diplomatic relations were broken off two years ago. Algeria and Morocco have many disputes, most notably over the status of Western Sahara, a territory Morocco claims as its own but where Algeria supports the pro-independence Polisario Front.

On Sunday, however, Algiers followed up on its offer on Saturday to provide humanitarian aid and said that emergency and medical teams, along with the aid, were ready to be dispatched if Rabat approved.

Lahcen Haddad, a Moroccan senator and former minister, describes the difficulties of reaching remote areas after the deadly earthquake.

Some of the villages are located high in the mountains and are isolated, and roads need to be cleared for ambulances and search and rescue teams to reach the trapped ad injured, he told Al Jazeera from Rabat.

“Sometimes the roads [leading to the villages] are not paved, so you have to bring in the army in order to get to the population [there], and then you start rescue missions at the same time you are evacuating some of the injured,” he said.

Rugged terrain is making it difficult to reach hard-hit communities in Morocco following the earthquake that hit on Friday.

Many people in the region are still under the rubble with their entire communities virtually destroyed, said Al Jazeera’s Hashem Ahelbarra, reporting from Talat N’Yaaqoub, 90km south of Marrakesh.

“Yesterday they managed to rescue two people,” said Ahelbarra. “They are hoping to replicate that today. But it’s going to be difficult for this reason: It’s extremely difficult to get to this area.

“It took me about six hours to drive from the airport to Talat N’Yaaqoub. I saw roads that were blocked by huge rocks that fell from the mountain just after the earthquake.

“This poses massive logistical concerns for authorities.”

Rescue workers in the Moroccan village of Moulay Brahim have celebrated after pulling a man out alive from under a collapsed building near the epicentre of the earthquake that struck late on Friday.

The number of dead from Friday’s earthquake has risen to 2,122, state TV reports.

The number of injured climbed to 2,421, it said.

Qatar is preparing to send aid and provide support to earthquake-stricken Morocco.

At Al Udeid air base, “Qatari [authorities] are currently preparing four planes to be flown into Morocco as part of the search and rescue operation,” Al Jazeera’s Stefanie Dekker said.

“Qatar is one of many countries who have pledged help to Morocco in the aftermath of this devastating earthquake,” she said, adding that the aid included vehicles and hardware, tents, medical equipment, search and rescue equipment, and food.

The International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies has released more than $1m from its emergency disaster fund to support the Moroccan Red Crescent’s work on the ground.

“The next 24 to 48 hours will be critical in terms of saving lives,” the global humanitarian network warned, adding that help could be needed for months or even years.

The World Health Organization (WHO) has said that more than 300,000 people have been affected by the disaster.

Khadija Satou, a resident of Marrakesh, has described the scene at Jemaa el-Fna Square in the heart of the old city as eerie with some shops closed and a mosque damaged after its minaret fell in the earthquake that hit Morocco on Friday night.

Some shopkeepers decided to stay open, saying they didn’t want to risk scaring tourists away. “The city itself and most residents depend on tourism,” one shop owner said, adding that closures might affect business. One of his employees said he hoped the city and its people will recover as soon as possible.

Another shop owner said: “The only thing we can do now as Moroccans is to console and support each other, help people who lost their homes, provide food, and donate to charities and give whatever we can to those in need.”

A taxi driver nearby said the government should enforce regulations on rebuilding homes so they are better equipped for future natural disasters.

A woman originally from Al Hoceima, a coastal town in northern Morocco, said she witnessed the 2004 deadly earthquake there, adding that she was lucky to be alive.

“What I went through Friday night brought back tragic memories, but I’m glad for the survivors and praying for the dead and for those who lost their families and homes,” she said.

Four French citizens are among those killed in the Morocco earthquake, and 15 have been injured, France’s Ministry for Europe and Foreign Affairs says in an update on casualties.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has sent his and the nation’s condolences to Mohammed VI and the citizens of Morocco.

Opening an Israeli cabinet meeting, he reminded his ministers that the disaster has killed more than 2,000 people – so far.

He added: “The state of Israel will render all possible assistance to Morocco, including, if requested, a rescue mission that is standing ready to help them. The state of Israel stands beside Morocco at this difficult time.”

Remote villages have been badly hit by the quake, and rescue teams are facing challenges in reaching them.

Caroline Holt, the global head of operations at the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC), says rescuing people “buried under the rubble at this moment is a race against time”.

“This response has very much been organised with the Moroccan government taking the lead at this point,” she told Al Jazeera.

“Search and rescue is critical at this point. Catching people buried under the rubble at this moment is a race against time,” Holt said.

“I don’t think we know the full picture of the extent of the injuries, and the number of deaths and survivors yet,” she added.

According to Mohammed Bin Makhlouf, a geology professor at Abdelmalek Essaadi University, strong aftershocks, such as the magnitude 4.5 earthquake that occurred early on Sunday, are a positive sign.

“When the aftershocks are relatively strong, it means earthquake activity will become less in a given area,” Makhlouf told Al Jazeera.

The professor also said the quake’s high death toll is due to poor infrastructure, as well as its timing as “it happened at night while people were sleeping, especially in villages”.

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan says his country is ready to help Morocco “with all means”.

“First, I wish God’s mercy on our brothers who lost their lives and a speedy recovery to those injured in the strong earthquake that occurred in Morocco,” the president said on the sidelines of the G20 summit in New Delhi.

He added: “In the name of my country and people, I hope all the people of Morocco get better soon. As a country that experienced the disaster of the century only six months ago, we are ready to help our Moroccan brothers with all our means.”

Two quakes hit southern Turkey in February, killing more than 57,000 people there and over 8,400 in northern Syria.

Morocco’s earthquake has badly damaged one of the most important historical sites in the High Atlas region, an earth-and-stone mosque built by a medieval dynasty that conquered North Africa and Spain, according to a report by the Reuters news agency.

Moroccan media reported that parts of the Tinmel Mosque had collapsed. Photographs circulating online, which could not be verified immediately, showed tumbled walls, a half-fallen tower and large piles of debris.

Responding to a Reuters question about the reported damage to Tinmel, a Moroccan Culture Ministry source reportedly said, “The ministry has decided to restore it and will make budget for it”, with no further details.

The 12th-century mosque was built where the Almohad dynasty established its first capital in a remote Atlas valley before going on to seize Marrakesh, proclaim its leader caliph, and march on across the region propelled by religious zeal.

The US Geological Survey says it recorded a 3.9-magnitude earthquake at a 10km depth about 80km southwest of the city of Marrakesh.

The prime minister of Morocco has issued a statement after the earthquake that hit on Friday night.

“I offer my sincere condolences to the families of the earthquake victims and wish recovery to the injured,” said Aziz Akhannouch.

“We continue to take measures in the implementation of royal directives aimed at following up and supporting relief efforts…In this great tragedy, I acknowledge the tremendous efforts made by the public authorities with great professionalism and great mobilisation,” he added.

Spain has sent a plane with 56 rescuers and four search dogs to quake-hit Morocco after it received a formal request for help from Rabat, according to the defence ministry.

An A400 military plane took off from a base in the northeastern city of Zaragoza with the team bound for Marrakesh to “help in the search and rescue of survivors of the devastating earthquake suffered in our neighbouring country,” the ministry said in a post on X, formerly called Twitter.

The rescuers belong to Spain’s Military Emergencies Unit, a body of the armed forces that was created to intervene quickly in emergency situations such as forest fires, floods and earthquakes.

French President Emmanuel Macron says he is ready to send help after the earthquake in Morocco if its government requests it.

“We have mobilised all technical and security teams to be able to intervene when the Moroccan authorities deem it useful,” Macron told reporters in New Delhi at the end of a G20 summit.

Pope Francis has offered prayers and solidarity for the victims of Morocco’s earthquake.

“I pray for the injured, for those who have lost their lives, so many of them, and for their relatives,” he said, speaking to crowds in St Peter’s Square.

He also thanked rescue workers for their efforts to help the victims of a quake that has killed more than 2,000 people.

“We stand with the people of Morocco,” he added.

Remote villages in Morocco are among the places most impacted by the earthquake.

The village of Ait Yahya in Taroudant province lost one-third of its residents due to the temblor, according to Al Jazeera’s Ayman Al Zubair, who is from the village.

“There is an air of sorrow among the people, and they expressed fear [about] when aid will arrive for them,” Al Zubair said.

“They received some aid in terms of food, but their main demand is a place to stay,” he added.

The area is also experiencing a shortage of water, and there are dead animals that have not been cremated yet so there are concerns diseases could emerge, Al Zubair said.

In the provincial capital Tinghir, there is only one reported death, but there are still concerns about reaching people in need due to the inaccessibility of some areas, according to journalist Ibrahim Bu Fadam.

“People are asking where is the prime minister in all of this,” Bu Fadam said.

Moroccans in quake-devastated areas have rallied for one another as they remain stranded outdoors for a second day, pleading for help.

The destruction has left many residents homeless, and even those still with homes chose to sleep in the open on Saturday night, fearing aftershocks or damaged roofs and walls crumbling in on them.

Read more here.

The Euro-Mediterranean Seismological Observatory, an international NGO, says it recorded a magnitude 4.5 earthquake 77km southwest of Marrakesh.

🔔#Earthquake (#زلزال) M4.5 occurred 77 km SW of #Marrakech (#Morocco) 28 min ago (local time 09:00:00). More info at:
📱https://t.co/bKBgMenA4F
🌐https://t.co/r9KGK80gJW
🖥https://t.co/9yn8oEZsPu pic.twitter.com/waCVfiR5TS

— EMSC (@LastQuake) September 10, 2023

According to Al Jazeera’s El Mokhtar El Aballaoui, reporting from Marrakesh, prayers in absentia will be held in all Moroccan mosques.

The Ministry of Endowments and Islamic Affairs said that under the directives of King Mohammed VI, absentia prayers will be held after the noon prayer.

Absentia funeral prayers are held when the bodies of the deceased cannot be found.

Khadija Satou is too traumatised to return to her apartment after the earthquake. Living alone in Marrakesh, she heard screaming around her as the quake struck.

She dropped everything and ran out of her building without her shoes or mobile phone. The staircase was shaking as she left, she said.

“At that moment, I was thinking there’s no way I can make it,” Satou told Al Jazeera.

She is now staying with her mother on the outskirts of Marrakesh. They slept in the garden on Saturday night amid aftershocks.

“I’m traumatised. I cannot go back home,” she said.

Many people are still out in the streets, too fearful to return home, Satou said.

“The feeling in the street is pretty bizarre. I’ve seen the city happy. I’ve seen the city sad. But this kind of sadness is unbelievable,” she said.

The old city of Marrakesh, known as the Medina, still has buildings in it that date back to its foundation in the 11th century.

The walls of this old city, punctuated by a series of impressive gates, are a distinct ochre colour, as they are made from the red earth of the city’s surrounding plain.

This is why old Marrakesh became known as the Red City. It became a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1985.

France stands ready to help Morocco after the earthquake and is awaiting a formal request for help, according to a foreign ministry spokesperson.

“Our embassy in Morocco is fully mobilised… An assessment (of the situation) is under way… At this stage Morocco has not asked for help,” Anne-Claire Legendre told BFM television.

One French citizen died and eight were injured in the earthquake, a french foreign ministry official confirmed on Saturday.

A resident of Marrakesh says the worst part of the earthquake is surviving it while loved ones may have perished in its rubble and ruins.

“I’m terrified […] watching people die,” Amina Radi told Al Jazeera.

“What freaks me out more is the possibility of us living while people we actually know and care about die,” she said.

Speaking to Al Jazeera, Marrakesh residents expressed their grief over the loss of loved ones and frustrations over aid and rescue efforts.

“I have lost four children and my husband. We can only lay our burdens at God’s feet,” a mother who did not give her name said.

Fatema Satir, a resident of Mellah in Marrakesh, criticised the lack of help for people on the streets.

“Look where all these people are sleeping, there is no help for us,” she told Al Jazeera, gesturing around.

Noureddine Lahbabi said: “It is a painful experience. When this happens to your brother or sister, it is really painful.”

Fatna Bechar said that she was lucky to have been saved by her neighbours after the temblor.

She said: “My neighbours came and helped me when the earthquake struck. They removed the debris and saved me from the rubble.”

Rescue teams are racing to find survivors trapped in the rubble of flattened villages.

The Moroccan army is deploying rescue teams, Algeria has opened up its airspace for humanitarian and medical flights, and several countries including France, Israel, Italy, Spain, and the US have offered aid.

Read what else we know about the earthquake so far here.

Spain will send search and rescue teams and other aid to quake-hit Morocco after it received a formal request for help from Rabat, according to Spanish Foreign Minister Jose Manuel Albares.

“It is a sign of Spanish solidarity and of the sense of friendship which unites the people of Spain with the people of Morocco,” he said during an interview with Catalunya Radio, adding that he had received a call from his Moroccan counterpart requesting the aid in the early hours of Sunday.

Badaoui Rouhban, a former UNESCO official on disaster prevention, says reconstructing the damaged buildings can take years.

“What we need now is to take a lesson from what happened to strengthen the current buildings,” he said.

The expert added that construction of new buildings should be under strengthened regulations and that the authorities should work to raise awareness among people of the importance of regulations.

More tremors were felt in the city of Marrakesh and surrounding areas Sunday morning.

Tremors that are likely aftershocks, according to Khadijah Satou, a resident of the city.

“We felt the ground moving,” Satou told Al Jazeera. “No damage, but it’s highly noticeable,” she added.

Her mother, who lives on the outskirts of the city, also felt them, Satou said.

The tremors were of a magnitude of 4.5, according to the Earthquake app, which monitors seismic activity and sends alerts to smartphone users.

Reporting from Marrakesh, Al Jazeera’s Jonah Hull says a central square in the Old City is full of people who slept outdoors Saturday night.

“In some cases, they have been told by the police not to return to their homes for fear of the structural integrity of some of the buildings,” he said on Sunday morning.

“Many others were simply terrified by the possibility of aftershocks and chose to remain outdoors, which they may do again in the evenings to come,” Hull said.

Hull said many people are angry over not receiving formal assistance from the government, and that volunteers are trying to provide supplies for people staying in the square.

Hani Lahsan, the head of the seismic monitoring and warning department in Morocco, says that aftershocks continue in the affected region, without surpassing the magnitude of three.

He said these shocks do not pose any danger and are mostly not felt by residents, adding: “The danger drops through time. It is a positive indication.”

There still remains the danger over the buildings that were affected by the original earthquake as they could collapse due to ongoing aftershocks in time, Lahsan said.

Lahcen Haddad, a Moroccan senator, describes the work of army and civil protection teams in rural areas as “a very heroic effort”.

“It is a very complex operation on a high terrain and some of it is not really accessible,” he told Al Jazeera from Rabat.

“The army has a lot of know-how and knows the terrain very well,” Haddad, who is also a former minister, said.

“They intervene every winter in order to deal with the population trapped in these regions because of snow,” he added.

Moroccans woke up to sights of devastation a day after the country experienced its most powerful earthquake in more than a century.

Reporting from Marrakesh, Al Jazeera’s Omar Al Haj says people have been bringing their injured relatives to the city from other areas, while others are still waiting for news on their loved ones stuck under the rubble.

He also said there is an expectation that the death toll will increase as there are a lot of people in critical condition.

“National rescue teams are at work in the affected areas, whether al-Haouz or others, the operations are difficult because of the complex geographic nature of some areas,” our correspondent added.

“There are foreign teams who have already arrived to help,” he said, adding that aid has also arrived from neighbouring European and Arab countries.

The earthquake’s epicentre was Ighil, a mountainous rural farming commune of villages in al-Haouz province near the ski resort of Oukaimeden in the Atlas Mountains.

It lay 75km (44 miles) from Marrakesh, Morocco’s fourth-largest city. The city’s Old Town, a UNESCO World Heritage site, is reported to have been particularly affected with images emerging of collapsed buildings.

The quake was felt across the country, including the coastal towns of Imsouane, 180km (102 miles) west of Ighil, and Essaouira, 200km (124 miles) west of Marrakesh, as well as the capital Rabat, 350km (220 miles) north of the epicentre, and as far away as Portugal and Algeria.

READ MORE: Where in Morocco did the 6.8 magnitude earthquake strike?

Deputy mayor of Marrakesh, Mohamed al-Edressi, says the authorities mobilised immediately after Friday’s quake.

“There was lots of material loss in Marrakesh’s old city, so in the morning we worked on trying to see where to take the residents affected in the Old City area,” he told Al Jazeera in an interview.

“The people of Marrakesh were providing food and blankets for each other,” he said, adding that many also donated blood in a show of solidarity.

He added that an arm of the Ministry of Development has started assessing houses to determine which ones are in danger of collapse.

Players from Morocco’s national football team have donated blood to help victims of the earthquake, according to a video posted on the team’s Facebook page.

Player Achraf Hakimi made a post on X, formerly known as Twitter, urging others to donate as well.

À l'heure actuelle, la priorité est de fournir du sang à ceux qui se trouvent dans une situation critique. Le don de sang est la responsabilité de chacun pour sauver le plus grand nombre de vies possible. Votre aide est indispensable 🙏🏽❤️

فهاد لوقت الأولوية هي نعطيو الدم ل الناس… pic.twitter.com/a1JZ9KxN81

— Achraf Hakimi (@AchrafHakimi) September 9, 2023

Translation:

“Right now, the priority is to provide blood to those in a critical situation. Blood donation is everyone’s responsibility to save as many lives as possible. Your help is essential.

At this time, the priority is to donate blood to people in critical condition. Blood donation is everybody’s responsibility to save as many souls as possible. Your help is essential.”

On Saturday, the Marrakesh Regional Blood Transfusion Centre called for blood donations as the city reeled from the impact of the deadly quake.

Citizens waited in long lines to donate blood, as ambulances continued to arrive at the emergency department at the Mohammed VI University Hospital Center in Marrakesh.

Morocco’s Interior Ministry says the death toll in the disaster has climbed to 2,012 people.

In a statement, the ministry added that 2,059 people had been injured in the earthquake, including 1,404 in critical condition.

According to Philippe Vernant, an active tectonics specialist focusing on Morocco at the University of Montpellier, the two quakes differ.

“In Turkey, we had horizontal movement, because Turkey is shifting to the west, moving towards Greece. There was a horizontal sliding of the (tectonic) plates,” Vernant told the AFP news agency.

“Here, we’re seeing more of a convergence between Africa and Eurasia or Iberia, the Spanish part, and overlapping faults … But we are still dealing with plate boundaries,” he added.

The earthquake that struck Morocco did not hit in the most active seismological region, according to the French expert, who added that aftershocks can be expected.

“Even if they are less strong, they can lead to the collapse of buildings already weakened by the earthquake,” he added.

Morocco has declared three days of national mourning over the deadly quake, according to a statement released Saturday evening.

The national flag will be flown at half-staff throughout the country, the royal court said in its statement.

The armed forces will deploy rescue teams to provide affected areas with clean drinking water, food, tents and blankets, it said.

The EU and its members have sent a letter to Morocco’s King Mohammed VI, conveying solidarity and condolences after the earthquake.

The letter, led by Charles Michel, president of the European Council, says: “We are deeply saddened by the devastating consequences of this tragic event.”

“The European Union and its Member States stand in full solidarity with the people of Morocco in this difficult moment,” it added.

“As close friends and partners of Morocco, we are ready to assist in any way You may deem useful,” the letter said.