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

It was the North African country’s deadliest earthquake since 1960, when a tremor was estimated to have killed at least 12,000 people, and the most powerful since at least 1900, according to the U.S. Geological Survey.

In a televised statement on Sunday, government spokesperson Mustapha Baytas defended the government’s response, saying every effort was being made on the ground.

The army said it was reinforcing search-and-rescue teams, providing drinking water and distributing food, tents and blankets.

King Mohammed VI has not addressed the nation since the disaster. Prime Minister Aziz Akhannouch told local media the government would compensate victims, but gave few details.

Morocco has accepted offers of aid from Spain and Britain, which both sent search-and-rescue specialists with sniffer dogs, from the United Arab Emirates, and from Qatar, which said on Sunday a search-and-rescue team was on its way.

The European Union said it was releasing an initial 1 million euros ($1.07 million) to non-governmental aid organisations in Morocco.

State TV said the government had assessed needs and considered the importance of coordinating relief efforts before accepting help, and that it might accept relief offers from other countries later.

Both France and Germany played down the significance of Morocco not immediately taking them up on their offers of aid, saying they did not see it as political.

After an initial response that was described as too slow by some survivors, search and rescue efforts appeared to be speeding up on Monday, with tent camps appearing in some locations where people were preparing for a fourth night outdoors.

A video filmed by Moroccan outlet 2M showed a military helicopter flying over an area close to the epicentre, dropping sacks of essential supplies to isolated families.

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

Roads blocked or obstructed by rocks that tumbled down the steep slopes during the quake have made it harder to access the worst-hit locations. Heavy machinery has been brought in to clear roads only for subsequent rockfalls to block them again.

The harm done to Morocco‘s cultural heritage has been emerging gradually. Buildings in Marrakech old city, a UNESCO World Heritage Site, were damaged. The quake also did major damage to the historically significant 12th-century Tinmel Mosque.

Residents in Tinmel, a remote village closer to the epicentre where 15 people were killed, said they had been sharing food, water and medicine, but desperately needed tents and blankets to shelter from the cold mountain nights.

The mother of a 15-day-old child said she need milk formula and medicine for her baby.

Two British tourists slept on the streets of a village in the Atlas mountains – unable to contact their families following a devastating earthquake in Morocco, one of their husbands has said.

Rebecca Calvert, 63, and friend Hilary Mckegney, 64, had just arrived in the remote village of Imlil in the Atlas Mountains to go on a hiking trip when the earthquake struck.

The magnitude 6.8 tremor late on Friday damaged buildings from villages in the Atlas Mountains to the historic city of Marrakesh.

Jacob Phillips reports:

CCTV has captured the moment a deadly earthquake struck a busy Marrakech street late on Friday 8 September.

The footage shows the ground shaking before people run for cover as buildings and debris crumble from the force of the tremors.

The 7.2-magnitude earthquake struck in Morocco’s Atlas Mountains, around 40 miles south of the ancient city of Marrakech, and has killed at least 2,100 people so far.

Another 2,500 people are injured with most of the casualties reported to be in hard-to-reach areas.

UK justice secretary Alex Chalk has said Britain stands “ready to provide whatever assistance is required”.

The Irish government has pledged two million euro in relief aid to Morocco in the wake of Friday’s devastating earthquake.

More than 2,400 people are now estimated to have died, with a further 300,000 people impacted in the magnitude 6.8 earthquake that reduced buildings to rubble across the country.

Moroccan officials have so far accepted government-offered aid from just four countries - Spain, Qatar, the UK and the United Arab Emirates.

The two million euro of Irish Aid support to the people of Morocco will assist the work of the International Federation of the Red Cross (IFRC) and the Moroccan Red Crescent Society (MRCS) - who are helping in the local humanitarian response efforts.

A statement from the Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA) said the funds “will support immediate and urgent humanitarian needs on the ground”.

“The funds will support local communities most affected through the provision of emergency shelter, clean drinking water and food, mobile health care including psychological support, and hygiene centres through support of the local response by the Moroccan Red Crescent,” the statement read.

Evacuations are under way and it is expected that thousands of people will be temporarily displaced in the region.

Announcing the funding this morning, the Tanaiste and Minister for Foreign Affairs Micheal Martin said Ireland stands in solidarity with the people of Morocco.

“I was shocked and saddened to learn of this devastating earthquake. My thoughts are with all those who have lost loved ones, the injured and emergency responders,” he said.

“The destruction, particularly in remote areas, will place extraordinary pressure on vulnerable groups and pose significant challenges to rescuers. Ireland stands in solidarity with the people of Morocco and will provide immediate emergency humanitarian assistance.

“Funding from Ireland will support a locally led response and provide assistance to those most impacted by this disaster.”

Minister for International Development and Diaspora, Sean Fleming TD, said the funding would “play an important role in the rebuilding of lives and communities in Morocco following the devastating earthquake”.

“Ireland has a proud record of responding quickly to support partners around the world when disasters strike. Our thoughts are with all the families who have lost loved ones,” he said.

“This humanitarian funding is a sign of Ireland’s support and solidarity with them at this time.”

Germany does not see any indications that Morocco’s decision to leave Berlin’s earthquake aid offerings on the table is political, a foreign ministry spokesperson said on Monday.

“Diplomatic relations between Germany and Morocco are good,” said the spokesperson, who added that the Moroccan side had thanked Germany for its offer of help.

As Germany learned from deadly flooding in 2021 in the Ahr valley, aid coordination is important during major disasters to ensure rescue workers do not impede each other, said the spokesperson.

“I’m sure that they (Morocco) have thought very carefully about which forces can be deployed where and how they can get there, what transport capacities are available, for example.”

Germany is among several countries, notably France, that have said they stand ready to help if asked.

Morocco’s King Mohammed VI on Sunday thanked Spain, Qatar, the UK and United Arab Emirates for sending aid after the country’s deadliest earthquake in over six decades, state TV reported.

Morocco’s deadly earthquake badly damaged one of the most important historical sites in the High Atlas mountains, an earth-and-stone mosque built by a medieval dynasty that conquered North Africa and Spain.

Moroccan media reported that parts of the Tinmel Mosque had collapsed. Photographs circulating online, which Reuters could not immediately verify, 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 said “the ministry has decided to restore it and will make budget for it”, without giving 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 Marrakech, proclaim its leader Caliph, and march on across the region propelled by religious zeal.

The United Nations cultural agency UNESCO said it had heard of “very important destructions to the Tinmel Mosque”, which it added had been proposed for listing as a World Heritage site, but added it was still waiting to send a team to assess the damage.

When earthquakes strike urban areas, the process of finding those who may be buried beneath collapsed buildings begins. Speed is essential as people trapped in the rubble often struggle to survive for longer than a few days. And the area hit by the disaster can be vast.

Wide area assessment

A preliminary survey of the affected area is often carried out by local emergency teams while additional help arrives. The destruction may just involve one city, or it may encompass a large area involving numerous towns across more than one country, as with the latest quake. Teams conducting the initial visual assessment remain mobile - travelling quickly by air or road, if the infrastructure permits - and don’t engage in rescue operations.

The survey helps to identify possible resources and hazards, as well as the main priorities for search and rescue teams. The disaster area is often then drawn into sectors to allocate command and to assign search teams.

Worksite triage

This assessment identifies viable live rescue sites in an allocated sector. The command centre uses this information to prioritise rescue sites and decide which teams to deploy where. Emergency teams aim to assess the entire sector as quickly as possible.

At each site, rescuers seek to gather essential information such as building size, type of construction materials and the “building collapse category”, aimed at classifying the different types of damage and danger.

Rapid search and rescue

In the early stages of a major earthquake response, when a large number of sites need checking, emergency teams conduct rapid searches to maximise the opportunities for saving lives. Teams are usually done at a site within a few hours, then move to the next.

Rescuers can use this stage to identify sites where a deeper search could be worthwhile. Specially trained dogs can be used to sniff out signs of life, moving quickly in the rubble.

Sound signalling

In major disasters - such as the 2021 temblor in the Caribbean nation of Haiti - where teams from many countries are present, language barriers mean that effective emergency signalling is essential for safe operations at the disaster site. All emergency personnel must know how to react to the sound signals, usually from air horns or other hailing devices.

Rescuers digging through the rubble after Morocco‘s deadly earthquake warned on Monday that the traditional mud brick, stone and rough wood housing ubiquitous in the High Atlas mountains reduced the chances of finding survivors.

“It’s difficult to pull people out alive because most of the walls and ceilings turned to earthen rubble when they fell, burying whoever was inside without leaving air spaces,” a military rescue worker, asking not to be named because of army rules against speaking to media, said at an army centre south of the historic city of Marrakech not far from the quake epicentre.

Morocco‘s most powerful earthquake since at least 1900 has killed at least 2,681 people, state TV said in the latest update of the human toll on Monday, with thousands more injured and many still missing.

The traditional homes, sometimes hundreds of years old, sometimes built more recently, have long been a popular sight for tourists travelling to the mountain from Marrakech.

They are often built by the families themselves to a traditional pattern, without any architect’s help and with extensions added when they can.

With no major earthquakes for a long time, few people would have thought to consider the risk of a tremor. But structures crumbled easily in mounds of debris when the quake struck late on Friday.

“The level of destruction is ... absolute,” Antonio Nogales, head of Spain’s United Firefighters Without Borders NGO said, speaking from Amizmiz, south of Marrakech, which was hard hit by the earthquake.

“The chances of survival are reduced” without the pockets of air that steel-and-concrete buildings can provide if they collapse, he said, while stressing that rescuers had not lost all hope.

“We never give up, I’m sure that in the coming days there will be some rescues. We think that there may still be people in the collapsed structures, that there may have been pockets of air.”

Even concrete homes or buildings often lack anti-seismic design, experts said, leaving survivors and rescuers to sift through mounds of rubble where homes once stood.

“When you just have the gravity load work, it’s fine, but with the pressure of an earthquake they can crumble basically like mud and dirt,” said Mo Ehsani, professor emeritus of civil engineering at the University of Arizona.

Rescuers face a race against time to find survivors of the deadly earthquake in Morocco, with international search and rescue arriving to help the search almost 72 hours after the disaster.

The earthquake, Morocco’s deadliest in more than six decades, has claimed the lives of nearly 2,700 people and a similar number of wounded, many of them seriously.

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

Jamie Dorrington has more: