On Tuesday, four days after a devastating earthquake struck the region, killing over 2,900 people, hope evaporated quickly that further survivors may be located high in the High Atlas Mountains of central Morocco. Because the 6.8 magnitude earthquake was unusual for the area, mud-brick towns and villages were especially vulnerable.
On Tuesday, while tremors were still driving buildings to fall in on themselves, CBS News went to a mountain town that had been ravaged by the earthquake and where 48 people had been killed. State media announced on Tuesday that 2,901 people had been confirmed dead, with another 5,530 wounded.
Rescuers and humanitarian workers have just one entrance into town, and it’s a one-lane road where a traffic jam or a rockslide may be catastrophic.
Residents and rescuers alike rushed against the clock to locate friends, relatives, and neighbors who had been trapped under the wreckage.
“I heard my sister yelling, ‘Brother, save us!’” Mohamed Ouchen told us, “I rescued her, her son, and her husband.” We didn’t have any equipment, so we simply used our hands.
These shows of joy, which were more common in the early aftermath of the earthquake, had become markedly uncommon by Day 4. Rescue teams were finally able to reach some distant districts of the ravaged province on Monday.
Many victims who may have been rescued in the hours after the quake died because the essential golden moment, the best chance for finding survivors who could still be hiding under the rubble, had passed.
Sharp cliffs, sinuous tunnels, and rickety buildings were as lethal as they were picturesque near the earthquake’s epicenter in the High Atlas Mountains.
When the mud-brick homes eventually give way, they crumble rather than fall apart, and there are seldom any air pockets left in the stack for survivors to hide in. For sufferers, dust may pose a lethal choking threat.
According to locals, they were virtually left to save themselves if anybody required rescuing.
“The government didn’t come, and we didn’t see anyone,” said one resident, Mouhamed Aitlkyd. They only came after the earthquake to count the deceased. Since then, no one has joined us here.
Although the Moroccan government claimed that “from the first seconds,” “all civil and military authorities and medical staff, military and civil,” worked on a “swift and effective intervention to rescue the victims and recover the bodies of the martyrs,” many Moroccans felt compelled to help their countrymen in any way they could.
Donors at a blood bank in Marrakesh have been queuing for hours in the scorching heat.
“I felt so sorry, and I would like to help,” Sukaina told CBS News as she waited to give blood. I am one of the injured here, and we are all Moroccans. Morocco as a whole must take action.
The government sent rescue teams and provided medical assistance. CBS News saw many planes and cars in way to the disaster scene.
The majority of the work was directed at delivering relief to survivors, and it was becoming more doubtful that anybody else was alive under the wreckage.