Soldiers, rescuers battle to reach Morocco's quake-hit towns as toll mounts

Moroccan soldiers and aid teams in trucks and helicopters have battled to reach remote mountain towns devastated by a monstrous earthquake that killed more than 2,800 people, with survivors desperate for help to find loved ones feared trapped under the rubble.

At least 2,862 people died in the strongest-ever earthquake to hit Morocco, the interior ministry said on Monday, revising an earlier toll of nearly 2,700 dead.

Another 2,562 people were injured, the ministry said, as rescue workers race against time in an effort to find survivors.

Moroccan officials have so far accepted government-offered aid from just four countries — Spain, Qatar, Britain and the United Arab Emirates — and some foreign aid teams said they were awaiting permission to deploy.

Morocco’s Interior Ministry said on Monday officials want to avoid a lack of coordination that "would be counterproductive."

The United Nations estimates that 300,000 people were affected by Friday night’s magnitude 6.8 quake, made more dangerous by its relatively shallow depth.

Most of the destruction and deaths were in Al Haouz province in the High Atlas Mountains, where homes folded in on themselves and steep, winding roads became clogged with rubble.

Residents sometimes cleared away rocks themselves.

'Insufficient aid'

People cheered when trucks full of soldiers arrived Sunday in the town of Amizmiz. But they pleaded for more help.

"It’s a catastrophe," said survivor Salah Ancheu in the town where mountainside homes and a mosque’s minaret collapsed.

"We don’t know what the future is. The aid remains insufficient," the 28-year-old said.

Army units deployed on Monday along a paved road leading from Amizmiz to remoter mountain villages. State news agency MAP reported that bulldozers and other equipment were being used to clear the routes. Tourists and residents lined up to give blood. In some villages, people wept as boys and helmet-clad police carried the dead through streets.

Aid offers poured in from around the world. About 100 teams made up of a total of 3,500 rescuers are registered with a UN platform and ready to deploy in Morocco when asked, Rescuers Without Borders said.

A Spanish search-and-rescue team arrived in Marrakech and headed to the rural Talat N’Yaaqoub, according to Spain’s Emergency Military Unit. Britain sent a 60-person search team with four dogs, medical staff, listening devices and concrete-cutting gear.

But other aid teams overseas that were poised to deploy expressed frustration that they couldn’t step in without government approval. Germany had a team of more than 50 rescuers waiting near Cologne-Bonn Airport but sent them home, news agency dpa reported.

The Czech Republic said it had a team of 70 rescuers ready to go and is waiting for permission to take off.

France, which has many ties to Morocco and said four of its citizens died in the quake, said on Monday that authorities in the North African country are evaluating proposals on a case-by-case basis.

French Foreign Minister Catherine Colonna said Morocco is "the master of its choices, which must be respected." She announced $5.4 million in emergency funds for Moroccan and international non-governmental groups rushing to help survivors.