Moroccan earthquake survivors seek more help from authorities

A woman in tears, not much is left of the village of Imine Tala, in Morocco’s southwest, following Friday’s earthquake.

With little aid from authorities, villagers on Sunday only rely on themselves for search and rescue operations.

The bodies of the bridegroom, his wife, his sister are under the rubble, Hada, a resident lament. “There was no one there to recover the bodies. We ask you to make our voice heard by the authorities. We ask for the road to be opened.”

According to official figures updated late on Sunday, quake killed at least two thousand 2,122 people.

The 6.8-magnitude quacked wiped out entire villages in the hills of the Atlas Mountains.

“People are very depressed here, the village of Imine Tala is completely demolished,” one unnamed villager reveals.

“There is no one left to help. The cliff fell on them. The people are still under the rubble and no one can remove the stones, and the authorities haven’t yet sent the equipment to remove them, as they haven’t done so for three days. You can smell the corpses everywhere. It’s a shame the authorities haven’t helped these people.”

In other parts of the country, the Moroccan Red Crescent and army lead the rescue effort.

West of Imine Tale in Amziz, other survivors have found refuge in tents.

“In the areas in the high mountains the road is difficult, and we hope the government and the civil society will be able to bring aid to those villages which are difficult to reach because they have nothing there, so in God’s will they will receive aid,” Mostafa Ushun says.

In addition to Spain, Morocco announced on Sunday it had accepted aid from Britain, Qatar, and the UAE.

The North African country’s strongest-ever left over 2,400 injured.

Friday’s quake struck 72 kilometres (45 miles) southwest of the tourist hub of Marrakesh, wiping out entire villages in the hills of the Atlas Mountains.

On Sunday an aftershock of magnitude 4.5 rattled the same region.

Africanews/Hauwa M.