At least 820 people died, mostly in Marrakech and five provinces near the quake's epicenter, and another 672 people were injured, Morocco's Interior Ministry reported Saturday morning.
The head of a town near the earthquake's epicenter told Moroccan news site 2M that several homes in nearby towns had partly or totally collapsed, and electricity and roads were cut off in some places.
On the steep and winding switchbacks from Marrakech to Al Haouz, ambulances with sirens blaring and honking cars veered around piles of Mars-like red rock that had tumbled from the mountainside and blocked the road. Red Cross workers tried to clear a boulder blocking the two-lane highway. The Moroccan government has not formally asked for help, a step required in order for outside rescue crews to be brought in.
The USGS said the epicenter was 18 kilometers below the Earth's surface, while Morocco's seismic agency put it at 11 kilometers down. Such shallow quakes are more dangerous. In 1960, a magnitude 5.8 tremor struck near the Moroccan city of Agadir and caused thousands of deaths.
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