Authorities in Morocco reported more than 2,000 fatalities from the country's biggest earthquake in decades on Saturday as emergency workers and the army raced to remote mountain villages where survivors are still feared to be buried in the ruins.

The Red Cross cautioned that it could take years to rebuild the damage despite the government's call for three days of national mourning.

The 6.8-magnitude earthquake hit late Friday in a hilly region, 72 kilometers southwest of the tourist destination of Marrakesh.

The quake caused extensive damage and sent panicked locals and visitors fleeing to safety in the middle of the night. Strong earthquakes were also felt in the coastal cities of Rabat, Casablanca and Essaouira.

"I was nearly asleep when I heard the doors and the shutters banging," said Ghannou Najem, a Casablanca resident in her 80s who was visiting Marrakesh when the quake hit. "I went outside in a panic. I thought I was going to die alone."

Near the center of the earthquake, in the mountain village of Tafeghaghte, almost nothing was left standing. The traditional clay bricks the Berber people of the area used were not strong enough to withstand the earthquake.

In the late afternoon, soldiers kept looking through the rubble, but most of the survivors went to the cemetery, where loud screams were heard during the funerals of about 70 villagers.

Strongest-ever

"Three of my grandchildren and their mother were killed — they are still under the rubble," villager Omar Benhanna, 72, told AFP. "Just a while ago, we were all playing together."

It was the strongest-ever quake to hit the North African kingdom, and one expert described it as the region's "biggest in more than 120 years."

According to the most recent update from the interior ministry, the quake has killed at least 2,012 people, most of whom were in the provinces of Al-Haouz, the epicenter, and Taroudant.

According to the ministry, another 2,059 people were injured, with 1,404 in critical condition.

Colonel Hicham Choukri, who is in charge of relief operations, told state television earlier that the epicenter and strength of the earthquake created an "exceptional emergency situation."

Foreign leaders expressed their condolences, and many offered assistance, including Israel, with which Morocco normalized relations in 2020.

With AFP