FOG BLOG WORLD LOG: DEATH TOLL NEARS 3000 FROM MOROCCAN EARTHQUAKE!

Morocco quake updates: Death toll near 3,000 as rescuers reach more towns Morocco quake toll likely to rise with rescuers yet to reach some remote villages

Hopes of finding survivors under the rubble are fading, not least because many of the traditional mud brick houses that are common in mountain villages crumbled to earthen rubble without leaving air pockets. Some survivors have camped out in the open along the Tizi n’Test road, which connects remote valleys to Marrakesh. They salvaged what they could from the wreckage, quickly packed bundles of their belongings and fled their destroyed villages. “The authorities are focusing on the bigger communities and not the remote villages that are worst affected,” Hamid Ait Bouyali, 40, said as he waited on the roadside. “There are some villages that still have the dead buried under the rubble.”

Many villagers have had no power or telephone service since the earthquake struck and said they had to rescue loved ones and pull out bodies buried under their crushed homes without any help.