Injured, many in critical condition. Emergency team shall combing there the rubble using picks, shovels and their bear hands to search for life. Those that did not survive the disaster, theyre already laid to rest as it tradition. And to honor them, morocco will observe three days of mourning. The disaster has affected more than 300,000 people in marrakech and surrounding areas. Locals say thetys World Heritage old city of madinah has seen extensive damage. People talk about the buildings that collapsed. Its, it happens just down this route too, and when you go, like, further and further, theres a lot of damage that happened to a lot of buildings, some of them are mosques, some houses. A lot of communities got hurt. One of the poorest areas in the city, and those people need help like food, water, blankets, or whatever, whatever you can help the royal morocco an Armed Service are mobilized to get support from evacuations to supplies. Moroccos king declared three days of National Mourni
i m victor blackwell. you re in the cnn newsroom. we begin with the news out of morocco of a devastating erk. the official death toll has risen to 1,037 deaths after a powerful magnitude 6.8 quake. the strongest to hit the north african nation in more than a century, it struck late last night, centered in the mountains surrounding marakesh, a tourist destination. the world health organization says more than 300,000 people in that city were affected. officials say there are more than 1,000 confirmed injuries, too, and with the sun up now, there is a race to reach victims in the most affected areas. but officials say rescue teams are struggling to get to those places. cnn s ben wedeman joins us now. rescue efforts are under way, but there is a concern this morning about aftershocks, especially knowing that morocco s infrastructure is not built for these kinds of large quakes. reporter: this is not considered a quake zone, in fact, and one of the problems is this earthquak