Sur­vivors with shov­els worked along­side bull­doz­ers Mon­day to dig through re­mote Mo­roc­can vil­lages flat­tened by a mon­strous earth­quake, as hope dwin­dled of find­ing peo­ple alive un­der wood-and-dirt homes that pan­caked in­to rub­ble and res­cuers over­seas wait­ed for Mo­roc­co to let them help.

More than 2,400 were killed when the quake struck late Fri­day — the strongest in the North African coun­try in more than a cen­tu­ry.

A French aid group that spe­cial­izes in lo­cat­ing peo­ple trapped un­der de­bris said it is with­draw­ing an of­fer to send a nine-per­son search-and-res­cue team af­ter wait­ing with­out suc­cess for a green light from Mo­roc­co to de­ploy. Res­cuers With­out Bor­ders’ founder, Ar­naud Fraisse, told The As­so­ci­at­ed Press that “our role is not to find bod­ies.”

Be­cause homes in quake-hit ar­eas were of­ten made of mud bricks with roofs of wood, stone and clay, he said, the hope of find­ing sur­vivors at this point is slim.

“When all of that col­laps­es, you don’t have much chance of sur­viv­ing, be­cause there are no air pock­ets,” Fraisse said — a con­trast to places where build­ings are made of con­crete or oth­er strong ma­te­ri­als. “Peo­ple are gen­er­al­ly suf­fo­cat­ed by the dust.”

Mo­roc­can of­fi­cials have so far ac­cept­ed gov­ern­ment-of­fered aid from just four coun­tries — Spain, Qatar, Britain and the Unit­ed Arab Emi­rates. 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 and wind­ing roads be­came clogged with rub­ble. Res­i­dents some­times cleared away rocks them­selves.

In the re­mote im­pov­er­ished set­tle­ment of Tafeghaghte, vil­lagers es­ti­mat­ed that more than half of the 160 in­hab­i­tants were killed. Peo­ple worked quick­ly to clear dead bod­ies, but a foul stench filled the air Mon­day from what res­i­dents said were dead cat­tle. Most build­ings had dis­in­te­grat­ed.

Ibrahim Wah­douch lost two young daugh­ters and two oth­er fam­i­ly mem­bers and likened the vil­lage to a war­zone.

“There’s not shoot­ing but look around,” he said.

Khadi­ja Fairou­je’s face was puffy from cry­ing as she joined rel­a­tives and neigh­bors haul­ing pos­ses­sions down rock-strewn streets.

On Mon­day, a teen car­ried a shov­el through the rocks, bull­doz­ers cleaned up de­bris and sur­vivors steered away from half-wrecked build­ings that threat­ened to col­lapse.

A day ear­li­er, peo­ple cheered when trucks full of sol­diers ar­rived in the town of Amizmiz, down the moun­tain from Tafeghaghte. But they plead­ed for more help.

“It’s a cat­a­stro­phe,’’ said sur­vivor Salah An­cheu. “We don’t know what the fu­ture is. The aid re­mains in­suf­fi­cient.”

Army units de­ployed Mon­day along a paved road lead­ing from Amizmiz to re­mot­er moun­tain vil­lages. State news agency MAP re­port­ed that bull­doz­ers and oth­er equip­ment are be­ing used to clear routes. Tourists and res­i­dents lined up to give blood. In some vil­lages, peo­ple wept as boys and hel­met-clad po­lice car­ried the dead through streets.

Of­fers of help poured in from around the world. But Mo­roc­can au­thor­i­ties frus­trat­ed some over­seas res­cuers who didn’t want to de­ploy with­out of­fi­cial ap­proval, which wasn’t quick­ly forth­com­ing.

Fraisse of Res­cuers With­out Bor­ders said about 100 teams — with rough­ly 3,000 res­cuers in to­tal — that are reg­is­tered with the U.N. could have de­ployed quick­ly to the city of Mar­rakech that was al­so hit by the quake.

He sur­mised that Mo­roc­can au­thor­i­ties may be try­ing to avoid the lo­gis­ti­cal chaos seen when a 2004 quake killed more 600 peo­ple and aid flights over­whelmed an air­port in the dis­as­ter zone.

“Lo­gis­ti­cal­ly, it’s ex­treme­ly com­pli­cat­ed to man­age, be­cause the res­cuers then all need to be trans­port­ed by truck on bro­ken, un­us­able roads to the zones,” he told the AP. “So I think they didn’t want to ex­pe­ri­ence again what they en­coun­tered dur­ing the last big quake.”

He said his group lodged its of­fer of as­sis­tance on Sat­ur­day af­ter­noon with Mo­roc­co’s Em­bassy in France be­fore de­cid­ing Mon­day that it would no longer be of help.

“It’s their re­spon­si­bil­i­ty. They can do what they want,” Fraisse said. “They didn’t call. So to­day we think it’s no longer nec­es­sary for us to go there, be­cause we won’t do ef­fec­tive work.”

A Span­ish search-and-res­cue team ar­rived in Mar­rakech and head­ed to the rur­al Ta­lat N’Yaaqoub, ac­cord­ing to Spain’s Emer­gency Mil­i­tary Unit. Britain sent a 60-per­son search team with four dogs, med­ical staff, lis­ten­ing de­vices and con­crete-cut­ting gear.

But the Czech Re­pub­lic was wait­ing for per­mis­sion to sent a team of 70 res­cuers. And Ger­many sent home more than 50 res­cuers who’d been wait­ing to fly out, news agency dpa re­port­ed.

France, which has many ties to Mo­roc­co and said four of its cit­i­zens died in the quake, said Mo­roc­can au­thor­i­ties are eval­u­at­ing pro­pos­als on a case-by-case ba­sis.

French For­eign Min­is­ter Cather­ine Colon­na said Mo­roc­co is “the mas­ter of its choic­es, which must be re­spect­ed.” She an­nounced 5 mil­lion eu­ros ($5.4 mil­lion) in emer­gency funds for Mo­roc­can and in­ter­na­tion­al non-gov­ern­men­tal groups rush­ing to help sur­vivors. French towns and cities have of­fered more than 2 mil­lion eu­ros ($2.1 mil­lion) in aid, and pop­u­lar per­form­ers are al­so col­lect­ing do­na­tions.

Those left home­less — or fear­ing more af­ter­shocks — have slept out­side in the streets of the an­cient city of Mar­rakech or un­der makeshift canopies in dev­as­tat­ed At­las Moun­tain towns like Moulay Brahim.

”I was asleep when the earth­quake struck. I could not es­cape be­cause the roof fell on me. I was trapped. I was saved by my neigh­bors who cleared the rub­ble with their bare hands,” said Fat­na Bechar. “Now, I am liv­ing with them in their house be­cause mine was com­plete­ly de­stroyed.”

The quake had a pre­lim­i­nary mag­ni­tude of 6.8 and hit at 11:11 p.m. Fri­day, the US­GS said. A to­tal of 2,497 peo­ple were con­firmed dead and at least 2,476 oth­ers were in­jured, the In­te­ri­or Min­istry re­port­ed.

Af­ter­shocks have since hit the zone, rat­tling nerves in ar­eas where dam­age has left build­ings un­sta­ble.

Mo­roc­co’s dead­liest quake was a mag­ni­tude 5.8 tem­blor in 1960 that struck near the city of Agadir, killing at least 12,000. It prompt­ed Mo­roc­co to change con­struc­tion rules, but many build­ings, es­pe­cial­ly rur­al homes, are not built to with­stand such tremors.

Flags were low­ered across Mo­roc­co, as King Mo­hammed VI or­dered three days of na­tion­al mourn­ing start­ing Sun­day. But there was lit­tle time for mourn­ing as sur­vivors tried to sal­vage any­thing from dam­aged homes.

Khadi­ja Fairou­je’s face was puffy from cry­ing as she joined rel­a­tives and neigh­bors haul­ing pos­ses­sions down rock-strewn streets. She had lost her daugh­ter and three grand­sons aged 4 to 11 when their home col­lapsed while they were sleep­ing less than 48 hours ear­li­er.

“Noth­ing’s left. Every­thing fell,” said her sis­ter, Hafi­da Fairou­je.

As­so­ci­at­ed Press jour­nal­ists Mark Carl­son in Mar­rakech, Mo­roc­co; Hou­da Be­nal­la in Ra­bat, Mo­roc­co; John Leices­ter, An­gela Charl­ton, Elaine Gan­ley in Paris; Jill Law­less in Lon­don; and Karel Jan­icek in Prague con­tributed.

TAFEGHAGHTE, Mo­roc­co (AP) —