Over 1,000 people have been reported dead after a rare, powerful earthquake struck Morocco late on Friday night.
Residents woken up by the tremors and the sounds of loved ones screaming in terror fled their homes into the darkness, where they remained until daylight huddled in fear of aftershocks.
Emergency workers are now in a race against time to find survivors amid the rubble after the death toll surged to at least 1,037 with 1,204 people injured – 721 of whom are said to be in a critical condition.
That number is expected to rise as rescuers struggle to reach remote areas in the Atlas Mountains hit hardest.
The quake was the biggest to hit Morocco in 120 years, and toppled buildings and walls in ancient cities made from stone and masonry not designed to withstand quakes.
Most of the tiny village of Moulay Brahim, carved into a mountainside south of Marrakech, was uninhabitable after walls crumbled, windows shattered and more than a dozen homes were reduced to piles of concrete and bent metal poles.
