A further 1,200 people have been injured after the tremor in the Marrakesh area.
More than 1,000 people have been killed and a further 1,200 injured in an earthquake near Marrakesh that flattened homes and devastated mountain villages in Morocco.
State television showed people clustered in the streets of Marrakesh, afraid to go back inside buildings that might still be unstable. Many wrapped themselves in blankets as they tried to sleep outside. In a sign of the huge scale of the disaster, Morocco’s King Mohammed VI ordered the armed forces to mobilise air and land assets, specialised search-and-rescue teams and a surgical field hospital, according to a statement from the military.
People also posted videos showing damage to parts of the famous red walls that surround the old city, a Unesco World Heritage site.Most of the tiny village of Moulay Brahim, carved into a mountainside south of Marrakesh, was uninhabitable after walls crumbled, windows shattered and more than a dozen homes were reduced to piles of concrete and bent metal poles. At least five residents were trapped.
World leaders offered to send in aid or rescue crews as condolences poured in from countries in Europe, the Middle East and the Group of 20 summit in India. In an exceptional move, neighbouring rival Algeria offered to open its airspace to allow eventual humanitarian aid or medical evacuation flights to travel to and from Morocco.
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