Morocco mourns earthquake victims as death toll passes 2,000
Marrakesh, Morocco - Moroccans on Sunday mourned the victims of the devastating earthquake that killed more than 2,000 people, as rescue teams raced to find survivors trapped in the rubble of flattened villages.
The strongest-ever quake to hit the country has killed at least 2,012 people and injured over 2,059, many of them critically, according to the latest official figures.
Friday's 6.8-magnitude quake struck 45 miles southwest of the tourist hub of Marrakesh, wiping out entire villages in rural areas.
Troops and emergency services have scrambled to reach remote mountain villages where victims are still feared trapped.
Al-Haouz province, where the epicentre of the earthquake was located, suffered the most deaths with 1,293, followed by the province of Taroudant with 452.
Authorities declared three days of national mourning, while several countries, including Israel, France, Spain, Italy and the United States, have offered aid.
Neighbouring Algeria, which has had rocky relations with Morocco, opened its airspace, which had been closed for two years, to flights carrying humanitarian aid and the injured.
Funerals for earthquake victims held amid the ruins
The Red Cross warned that it could take a very long time to repair the damage.
"It won't be a matter of a week or two... We are counting on a response that will take months, if not years," Hossam Elsharkawi, the organization's Middle East and North Africa director, said in a statement.
The village of Tafeghaghte was almost entirely destroyed by the quake, the epicenter of which was only about 30 miles away, an AFP team reported, with very few buildings still standing.
"Three of my grandchildren and their mother are dead," said 72-year-old Omar Benhanna. "They're still under the debris. It wasn't so long ago that we were playing together."
Residents buried around 70 victims in the nearby cemetery on Saturday, as the funeral rites were punctuated by cries and screams.
This earthquake is the deadliest in Morocco since the 1960 quake that destroyed Agadir, in which more than 12,000 people, about a third of the city's population at the time, died.
Cover photo: REUTERS