Rescuers raced against time on Monday to find survivors in the rubble more than 48 hours after Morocco’s deadliest earthquake in over six decades, with nearly 2,500 killed in a disaster that devastated villages in the High Atlas Mountains.

Search teams from Spain, Britain and Qatar were joining efforts to find survivors of the 6.8 magnitude quake that struck late on Friday night, 72 km (45 miles) southwest of Marrakech.

Many survivors spent a third night outside, their homes destroyed or rendered unsafe. The death toll has climbed to 2,497 with 2,476 people injured, the state news agency reported on Monday.

In Imgdal, a village about 75 km south of Marrakech, women and children huddled early on Wednesday morning under makeshift tents set up along the road and next to damaged buildings. Some gathered around an open fire. Further south, a car stood crushed by boulders that had fallen from the cliff.

In the village of Tafeghaghte, Hamid ben Henna described how his eight-year-old son died under wreckage after he had gone to fetch a knife from the kitchen to cut a melon as the family were having their evening meal. The rest of the family survived.

With much of the quake zone in hard-to-reach areas, the full impact has yet to emerge. The authorities have not issued any estimates for the number of people still missing.

Roads blocked or obstructed by dislodged rocks have made it harder to access the hardest hit locations.

On a road near the town of Adassil, not far from the epicenter, rescue worker Ayman Koait was trying to clear rockfalls that were blocking traffic.

Source: Reuters