At least 600 people died Friday after a powerful earthquake struck central Morocco, according to the country’s Interior Ministry.
The quake – measuring magnitude 6.8 – sent people rushing into the streets in Marrakesh and other cities.
Many of the deaths were said to be in hard-to-reach mountain areas – and at least 153 people were injured.
It struck just after 23:00 local time, at a relatively shallow depth 71km (44 miles) south-west of Marrakesh, according to the US Geological Survey.
Unverified video clips on X (formerly Twitter) show damaged buildings and rubble-strewn streets.
According to the ministry, of those injured, 51 were in a critical condition after the earthquake.
Some buildings in Marrakesh’s old city have collapsed, one resident told the Reuters news agency. Several clips on X show buildings crashing down, but cannot be not identified where they were.
Locals are said to have decided to stay outside their homes in case the city is rocked by powerful aftershocks.
The stricken areas are mostly south of Marrakesh, which is a popular tourist destination.
The ministry added that 153 others had been injured and taken to hospital.
Morocco’s Interior Ministry on Saturday urged people to keep calm and to “avoid panic.”
In a speech broadcast on state media, Rashid Al-Khalfi, the general secretary of Internal Affairs at the ministry, said the government has already activated all resources available to deal with the tragedy.
Multiple buildings collapsed following Friday night’s quake southwest of Marrakech city in Morocco, footage aired by the state-run Al-Aoula TV station showed.
Thousands of people fled their houses and residential buildings after the country’s National Institute of Geophysics warned of aftershocks.
The epicenter of the quake was in the town of Ighil in Al Haouz Province of the Marrakech-Tensift-El Haouz region of Morocco.
A former imperial city with nearly a thousand years of history, Marrakech is tightly packed with medieval-era palaces, mosques, gardens and bustling markets.
Its old city center is surrounded by red earth walls and filled with buildings constructed in red sandstone, which gave the city its nickname the “red city.”
Those walls were first laid out in the early 12th century.
Before the Covid pandemic, the old city drew nearly three million tourists in 2019.
Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi says he’s “extremely pained by the loss of lives” in Morocco – saying his thoughts are with the nation.
“Condolences to those who have lost their loved ones,” he adds on the social network X (formerly Twitter).
“May the injured recover at the earliest. India is ready to offer all possible assistance to Morocco in this difficult time.”
Modi’s country is currently hosting the G20 summit.
The USGS said the epicenter was 18 kilometers (11 miles) below the Earth’s surface, while Morocco’s seismic agency put it at 8 kilometers (5 miles) down. In either case, such shallow quakes are more dangerous.
Earthquakes are relatively rare in North Africa. Lahcen Mhanni, Head of the Seismic Monitoring and Warning Department at the National Institute of Geophysics, told 2M TV that the earthquake was the strongest ever recorded in the mountain region.
In 1960, a magnitude 5.8 tremor struck near the Moroccan city of Agadir and caused thousands of deaths.
The Agadir quake prompted changes in construction rules in Morocco, but many buildings, especially rural homes, are not built to withstand such tremors.
By Agencies