Morocco earthquake update: Race to find survivors as death toll rises to 2,800

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.

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

Mike McHugo is a visionary entrepreneur who transformed an ancient fort 60km south of Marrakech into a sought-after eco-lodge known as the Kasbah du Toubkal. It is located in the foothills of North Africa’s highest mountain, Toubkal, above the village of Imlil.

He was in bed on the property at 11.11 p.m. on Friday when the earthquake struck.

“I was woken up and I knew instantly it was an earthquake. I was in a room with my brother and I knew we couldn’t get out because we were in a downstairs bedroom and stuff was falling around. I just told him to get under the bed or close to the bed.

The epicenter was about 70km (43 miles) southwest of Marrakech – the fourth-biggest city in Morocco and by far the most popular draw for international visitors.

Thousands of British holidaymakers are in the area, with many thousands more booked to go there during September. This is the travel picture:

One of the survivors, Hicham Ahazar who lives in Asni recounted the moment the earthquake hit.

He told CNN that he grabbed his sister and rushed outside. “I grabbed her and we ran outside. And as soon as we got outside, a whole wall collapsed.”

It was during this escape that he ended up hurting his leg. “I looked at my leg later and I saw there was a lot of blood. But I almost didn’t notice it. It was crazy.”

It was days later when he received some help and saw a medical professional who cleaned up his wound and bandaged his leg properly.

Spanish firefighters were among the first professional teams to reach the devastated community up in the village of Algou, high in the Atlas Mountains.

“There is nothing we can do here,” Juan Lopez, a Spanish firefighter responding to the earthquake in Morocco, told BBC News.

“Here in Morocco, the houses are built from rocks. In Turkey they were made with steel and are much more strong,” Mr Lopez said. He also went to Turkey during the devastating earthquake there.

“We won’t find anyone here.”

Up in the Ighil District in the Atlas Mountains, the speed of rescue operations has been criticized, Sky News reported.

The region is remote and rescuers are racing against time to find survivors.

One unidentified woman was quoted as saying that the villagers could hear screams from under the rubble but nobody came to help.

The villagers in the remote part of Morocco did what they could without the right equipment. The woman said that those under the rubble could have survived had help arrived on time.

“My house fell, gone, it collapsed on me and my family, I rescued my two daughters and their mother, but I lost my other two children, and I have no furniture, nothing left,” a man said.

Nearly 100,000 children have been impacted by the devastating earthquake in Morocco, according to UNICEF.

The agency said that it doesn’t know the exact number of children killed or injured but “the latest estimates from 2022 indicate that children represent almost a third of the population in Morocco”.

“Thousands of homes have been destroyed, displacing families, and exposing them to the elements at a time of year when temperatures drop down during the nighttime. Schools, hospitals, and other medical and educational facilities have been damaged or destroyed by the quakes, further impacting children,” UNICEF said in a statement.

The agency said it has “already mobilized humanitarian staff to support the immediate response on the ground, which is being led by the Kingdom of Morocco”.

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

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

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

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 organizations 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 epicenter, 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 epicenter 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 needed 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.