Moroccans worked Sunday to rescue survivors and prayed for victims of the nation's strongest earthquake in more than a century, while soldiers and workers brought water and supplies to mountain villages in ruins as international aid crews remained in limbo waiting for the nation to request their help. More than 2,000 people are dead - a number that is expected to rise.
Those left homeless by the destruction of Friday night's earthquake slept outside Saturday, in the streets of the ancient city of Marrakech or under makeshift canopies in Atlas Mountain towns like Moulay Brahim, among the hardest-hit. The worst destruction is in small, rural communities that are hard for rescuers to reach because of the mountainous terrain.
The king called for mosques across the kingdom to hold prayers Sunday for the victims, many of whom were buried Saturday amid the frenzy of rescue work nearby. About 100 teams comprising a total of 3,500 rescuers from around the world are registered with a U.N. platform and ready to deploy in Morocco but are awaiting a green light from Moroccan authorities, according to the founder of aid group Rescuers Without Borders.
About 45 kilometers northeast of the quake epicenter, fallen walls exposed the innards of damaged homes, their rubble sliding down hills. People in Moulay Brahim, a poor rural community of less than 3,000 people, live in homes made of clay brick and cinder block. Many of the houses are either not safe or no longer standing.
Some Marrakech shop owners returned to work Sunday morning, after the king encouraged economic activities to resume nationwide and ordered plans to begin to reconstruct destroyed buildings.
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