RABAT: A powerful earthquake struck Morocco’s High Atlas mountains late on Friday, killing at least 820 people, destroying buildings and sending residents of major cities rushing from their homes.
The number of injured stood at 670, state media reported on Saturday, citing an updated initial casualty toll from the Interior Ministry. A local official told a news agency said most deaths were in mountain areas that were hard to reach.
Residents of Marrakech, the nearest big city to the epicentre, said some buildings had collapsed in the old city, a UNESCO World Heritage site, and local television showed pictures of a fallen mosque minaret with rubble lying on smashed cars.
The Interior Ministry, in its televised statement on the death toll, urged calm and said the quake had hit the provinces of Al Haouz, Ouarzazate, Marrakech, Azilal, Chichaoua and Taroudant.
Morocco’s geophysical centre said the quake struck in the Ighil area of the High Atlas with a magnitude of 7.2. The US Geological Survey put the quake’s magnitude at 6.8 and said it was at a relatively shallow depth of 18.5 km (11.5 miles).=
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Ighil, a mountainous area with small farming villages, is about 70 km (40 miles) southwest of Marrakech. The quake struck just after 11 p.m. (2200 GMT).
The earthquake is Morocco’s deadliest since a 2004 tremor near Al Hoceima in the northern Rif mountains which killed over 600 people.
In Marrakech, some houses in the tightly packed old city had collapsed and people were working hard by hand to remove debris while they waited for heavy equipment.
Footage of the medieval city wall showed big cracks in one section and parts that had fallen, with rubble lying on the street.
People in Rabat, about 350 km (220 miles) north of Ighil, and in the coastal town of Imsouane, about 180 km to its west, also fled their homes, fearing a stronger quake, according to Reuters witnesses.
Videos shared on social media of the immediate aftermath of the quake showed people fearfully running out of a shopping centre, restaurants and apartment buildings and congregating outside.
