BY SAM METZ AND MOSA’AB ELSHAMY
Moroccan soldiers and aid teams in trucks and helicopters battled Monday to reach remote mountain towns devastated by a monstrous earthquake that killed more than 2,400 people, with survivors desperate for help to find loved ones feared trapped under the rubble.
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 says 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.
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