MOROCCO: At least 450 people died when a powerful earthquake shook northern Morocco yesterday near the Mediterranean port city of Al Hoceima, officials said, warning the death toll was likely to rise.
Villages around Al Hoceima were badly damaged, people were still buried under the rubble of collapsed mud-brick homes and the local hospital was too small to cope with the scale of the disaster, they said.
"As soon as we think we've seen all the dead and injured, more keep coming in ambulances," said a doctor at the city's Mohammed V hospital.
Many of the injured were being treated in an army barracks, in health centres and charity homes. Others were being airlifted to cities including the capital Rabat, Casablanca and Meknes.
Morocco's MAP state news agency put the provisional death toll at 447 with 250 injured in the worst quake to rock the north African country in more than 40 years. Ms Josephine Shields, north African delegate for the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC) in Tunis, said six villages within 15 km of Al Hoceima had been hit, in particular Ait Kamara.
"Ait Kamara has been reported to be totally destroyed. We've been told that the entire affected area has between 300,000 and 400,000 people. It is a remote area, very mountainous, so it is a bit difficult to access." She said victims needed blankets, warm clothing, food and water. "There is possibly a need for a field hospital as local health facilities are basically saturated," she added.
An Interior Ministry official in Al Hoceima said heavy equipment was badly needed in order to clear the rubble and search for survivors. But he warned access would be difficult on the narrow roads snaking at the foothills of the Rif mountains.
A civil defence spokesman in Al Hoceima said there were many dead in Ait Kamara. "So far rescue workers have found 15 bodies in that village alone," he said. Most houses in the village were built of mud bricks and collapsed under the force of the tremor.
A local member of parliament, who did not want to be identified, said: "The number of people killed could easily reach 300. Rescuers have only managed to dig out about 10 per cent of the number of people believed to be buried under the rubble" in villages around Al Hoceima.
Two villages, Im-Zouren - where 164 people died according to MAP - and Bni-Hadifa, were also badly hit.