Military, rescuers scramble to find survivors after powerful earthquake strikes Morocco

A rare, powerful earthquake that struck Morocco toppled buildings in mountainous villages and ancient cities not built to withstand such force. More than 1,300 people were killed, and the toll is expected to rise as rescuers struggled Saturday to reach hard-hit remote areas where the dead were buried even as desperate efforts were underway to save those trapped.

The 6.8-magnitude quake, the biggest to hit Morocco in 120 years, sent people fleeing their homes in terror and disbelief late Friday.

One man said dishes and wall hangings began raining down, and people were knocked off their feet. The enormity of the destruction came into view in the daylight.

The quake brought down walls made from stone and masonry not designed to withstand quakes, covering whole communities with rubble and leaving residents picking their way precariously through remains. Rescuers worked through the night to find survivors buried in the dusty ruins.

A tent typically used for celebrations was being erected for shelter in the square of the impoverished mountain community of Moulay Brahim, where homes made of clay and brick were largely left uninhabitable. Fathers sobbed into phones telling loved ones about losing their children. Bodies covered with blankets lay in the health centre next to a mosque as doctors pulled shards from people’s feet and treated surface wounds.

“There’s nothing to do but pray,” said Hamza Lamghani, who lost five of his closest friends.

In a sign of the huge scale of the disaster, Morocco’s King Mohammed VI ordered the armed forces to mobilize air and land assets, specialized search-and-rescue teams and a surgical field hospital, according to a statement from the military. “People [are] clearing rubble and so on with their hands,” Peter Mercer, owner of the Dar Zaman guesthouse in Marrakech, told CBC News.

“Everyone mucks in. It’s not just professionals, but now everyone’s volunteering, anyone, neighbours, everyone is clearing stuff,” he said.

“I saw a taxi that’s … buried in rubble from a falling building. So people are lifting things off and literally everyone’s just mucking in and helping clear things away.”

But despite an outpouring of offers of help from around the world, the Moroccan government had not formally asked for assistance, a step required before outside rescue crews could deploy.

About a dozen Canadians attending a UNESCO conference in Marrakech are safe, according to John Norman, the mayor of Bonavista, N.L. He was awoken in his hotel room Friday night.

“It was quite surreal,” Norman, who is also the chair of the Discovery UNESCO Global Geopark on the Bonavista Peninsula, told CBC News. “I think everyone is in a bit of shock.”

Canada’s foreign affairs minister, Mélanie Joly, has urged Canadians in Morocco to register with Global Affairs Canada.  She said Canadians in Morocco who need help should contact the federal Emergency Watch and Response Centre, which can provide emergency consular assistance.

Famed mosque damaged

In Marrakech, the famous Koutoubia Mosque, built in the 12th century, sustained damage, but the extent was not immediately clear. Its 69-metre minaret is known as the “roof of Marrakech.” Moroccans also posted videos showing damage to parts of the famous red walls that surround the old city, a UNESCO World Heritage site.

At least 1,305 people died, mostly in Marrakech and five provinces near the quake’s epicentre, Morocco’s Interior Ministry reported Saturday evening. Another 1,832 people were injured — 1,220 critically — the ministry said.

Marrakech resident Amanda Mouttaki was talking to family members living outside the country when the earthquake hit. She initially thought a plane might be coming down, as she and her husband live near the airport.

“Things started falling off the walls,” Mouttaki, who is originally from Michigan, told CBC News Network on Saturday.

She and her husband quickly grabbed their five-year-old son and fled into the street. “Everybody was on the streets, just crying and trying to figure out what happened,” she said.

The epicentre of Friday’s tremor was near the town of Ighil in Al Haouz Province, roughly 70 kilometres south of Marrakech. Al Haouz is known for scenic villages and valleys tucked in the High Atlas, and villages built into mountainsides.

Abderrahim Ait Daoud, head of the town of Talat N’Yaaqoub, said authorities are working to clear roads in the province to allow passage for ambulances and aid but that large distances between mountain villages means it will take time to learn the extent of the damage.

The Moroccan military deployed aircraft, helicopters and drones, and emergency services mobilized aid efforts to the hardest areas, but roads leading to the mountain region around the epicentre were jammed with vehicles and blocked with fallen rocks, slowing rescue efforts.

Trucks loaded with blankets, camp cots and lighting equipment were trying to reach that hard-hit area, the official news agency MAP reported.

On the steep, winding switchbacks from Marrakech to Al Haouz, ambulances with sirens blaring and honking cars veered around piles of Mars-like red rock that had tumbled from the mountainside and blocked the road. Red Cross workers tried to clear a boulder blocking the two-lane highway.

World offers help

World leaders offered to send aid or rescue crews as condolences poured in from the G20 summit in India, countries around Europe, the Mideast and beyond.

Turkey, where powerful earthquakes in February killed more than 50,000 people, said it was ready to provide support. France and Germany, with large populations of people of Moroccan origin, also offered to help, and the leaders of both Ukraine and Russia expressed support for Moroccans.

In an exceptional move, neighbouring Algeria offered to open its airspace to allow eventual humanitarian aid or medical evacuation flights to travel to and from Morocco.

Algeria closed the airspace when its government severed diplomatic ties with Morocco in 2021 over a series of issues. The countries have a decades-long dispute involving the territory of Western Sahara.

The U.S. Geological Survey said the quake had a preliminary magnitude of 6.8 when it hit at 11:11 p.m. local time, with shaking that lasted several seconds.

The U.S. agency reported that a 4.9-magnitude aftershock hit 19 minutes later. The collision of the African and Eurasian tectonic plates occurred at a relatively shallow depth, which makes a quake more dangerous.

Earthquakes are relatively rare in North Africa. Lahcen Mhanni, head of the Seismic Monitoring and Warning Department at the National Institute of Geophysics, told 2M TV that the earthquake was the strongest ever recorded in the region.

In 1960, a 5.8-magnitude tremor struck near the Moroccan city of Agadir, causing thousands of deaths. That quake prompted changes in construction rules in Morocco, but many buildings, especially rural homes, are not built to withstand such tremors.

In 2004, a 6.4-magnitude earthquake near the Mediterranean coastal city of Al Hoceima left more than 600 dead.

Friday’s quake was felt as far away as Portugal and Algeria, according to the Portuguese Institute for Sea and Atmosphere and Algeria’s Civil Defence agency, which oversees emergency response.