Many survivors of Morocco's powerful earthquake feel that death is stalking them as they now struggle to stay alive with help yet to arrive.

"We feel abandoned here, no one has come to help us," 43-year-old Khadija Aitlkyd said in the ruins of her village of Missirat in a remote area high in the Atlas Mountains.

"Our houses have collapsed… where are we all going to live?" she asked in the rubble of the tiny, remote settlement where the smell of death hung in the air on Monday.

Residents of Missirat said the bodies of 16 locals killed in the quake have been recovered, but their dead livestock under the stones and timber was starting to decompose.

Another survivor, Mohammed Bouaziz, saw his village of Moulay Brahim south of Marrakesh hard hit in Morocco's deadliest quake in over six decades — about 20 residents were killed.

"We have received some help… but it's not enough," the 29-year-old said.

The deadly quake has put a heavy burden on the North African kingdom's emergency resources and some stranded in shattered communities were angry and shocked over what they say is a lack of a major influx of aid.

The violent shaking that flattened whole villages has inflicted a toll that rose on Monday to over 2,800 dead and almost as many injured.

 WITH AFP