Donations will be targeted to the over 100,000 children impacted by the earthquake in Morrocco. Over 2,800 killed with unknown additional children losing access to homes and schools.
An earthquake has sown destruction and devastation in Morrocco, where death and injury counts continued to rise Monday as rescue crews continued digging people out of the rubble, both alive and dead, in villages that were reduced to rubble. Law enforcement and aid workers — Moroccan and international — continued arriving Monday in the region south of the city of Marrakech that was hardest hit by the magnitude 6.8 tremor on Friday night, and several aftershocks.
Thousands of residents were waiting for food, water and electricity, with giant boulders blocking steep mountain roads.
Rescuers have begun to reach some remote mountain villages in Morocco that were hardest hit by the strongest earthquake in the area in more than a century, but on Monday, three days after the disaster, many more settlements were still waiting for assistance.
Some roads in the Atlas Mountains near the ancient city of Marrakesh remained blocked by landslides after Friday’s earthquake, which had a magnitude of at least 6.8. In the first remarks to come directly from a senior official, government spokesman Mustapha Baitas pushed back on criticism that the response had been slow and uncoordinated, with many survivors left to fend for themselves. In a video published on social media channels late Sunday, Mr. Baitas said that the Moroccan authorities had mounted “swift and effective” search, rescue and recovery operations.
