Morocco earthquake – live: Race to find survivors as death toll tops 2,901

Law enforcement and aid workers — both Moroccan and international — have arrived in the region south of Marrakech that was hardest hit by the magnitude-6.8 tremor Friday night and several aftershocks. Residents await food, water and electricity, and giant boulders now block steep mountain roads.

Here’s what you need to know:

Flashes in the sky above Morocco moments before a devastating earthquake struck the country and killed thousands were captured in social media videos – similar to unexplained lights seen during previous large seismic events as well.

This bizarre occurrence is likely a phenomenon known as earthquake lights (EQL). They were spotted earlier this year during the massive tremors that struck Turkey and Syria, and in 2017 above Mexico after a powerful 7-magnitude earthquake.

Vishwam Sankaran reports:

People in Marrakesh have been donating blood to their local hospitals to help those injured in the earthquake, according to a report.

“People are lined up outside, coming here to donate what is essential for the injured, for the victims and also for those who are still expected to come,” Al Jazeera’s Stefanie Dekker said.

The most affected area is in the Atlas Mountains about 70km southwest of Marrakesh, where many of the villages there lack roads linking them to urban areas.

The International Federation of the Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC) on Tuesday launched an emergency appeal to raise 100 million Swiss francs ($112.3 million) to support the victims of the earthquake in Morocco.

"In this appeal, we are seeking 100 million CHF to be able to deliver on the most pressing needs at this time," including water, sanitation and shelter, Caroline Holt, global director for operations at IFRC, told reporters in Geneva.

"We need to make sure that we avoid a second wave of disaster."

The Morocco earthquake that has killed more than 2,000 people was the strongest to hit the north African nation in several decades.

The earthquake struck just after 11pm on Friday and has impacted the entire region, with tremors being felt thousands of miles away in Portugal and Algeria.

The quake’s epicentre is in the middle of the country and located at the High Atlas Mountains in the Ighil area, about 40 miles (70km) south of Marrakech.

Anuj Pant reports:

Thousands have been affected following an earthquake in Morocco on Friday 8 September that has devastated rural communities in the Atlas Mountains.

Mountainside villages in the epicentre, Al Haouz province (44 miles south of Marrakech), were destroyed and many have lost their lives. Some 2,476 people have been injured and the death toll has risen to 2,500 as a result of the 6.8 magnitude earthquake.

Natalie Wilson reports on how you can help:

In Tikekhte, where few buildings have been left standing, 66-year-old Mohamed Ouchen described how residents rescued 25 people - one of whom was his sister.

"We were busy rescuing. Because we didn’t have tools, we used our hands," he said. "Her head was visible and we kept digging by hand."

Footage from the remote village of Imi N’Tala, filmed by Spanish rescuer Antonio Nogales of the aid group Bomberos Unidos Sin Fronteras (United Firefighters Without Borders), showed men and dogs clambering over steep slopes covered in rubble.

"The level of destruction is ... absolute," said Nogales on Monday, struggling to find the right word to describe what he was seeing. "Not a single house has stayed upright."

Despite the scale of the damage, he said rescuers searching with dogs still hoped to find survivors.

The epicentre of the quake was about 72 km (45 miles) southwest of Marrakech, where some historical buildings in the old city, a UNESCO World Heritage Site, were damaged. The quake also did major damage to the historically significant 12th-century Tinmel Mosque.

In the village of Tinmel, almost every house was pulverised and the entire community has been left homeless. The stench of death from dozens of animals buried under the rubble wafts through parts of the village.

Mouhamad Elhasan, 59, said he had been eating dinner with his family when the earthquake struck. His 31-year-old son fled outside and was hit as their neighbour’s roof collapsed, trapping him under the rubble.

Elhasan said he searched for his son as he cried for help. But eventually the cries stopped, and by the time he reached his son he was dead. Elhasan and his wife and daughter remained inside their home and survived.

"If he had stayed inside the house he would have been ok," Elhasan said.

In Tinmel and in other villages residents said they had pulled people out of the rubble with their bare hands.

The British man who has done more than anyone else to build tourism in Morocco’s Atlas Mountains says he is “lucky to be alive” after he was caught up in Friday’s catastrophic earthquake.

But some students attending the schools in the area he helped to establish have died.

Simon Calder reports:

With much of the quake zone in hard-to-reach areas, authorities have not issued any estimates for the number of missing.

The earthquake, Morocco’s deadliest in more than six decades, has claimed the lives of nearly 2,800 people and a similar number of wounded, many of them seriously. However, authorities have not yet revealed the number of missing.

Search teams from Britain, Spain and Qatar have joined efforts to find people buried under the rubble, including in some of the remote villages in the High Atlas mountains close to the epicentre of the quake.