A rare, pow­er­ful earth­quake struck Mo­roc­co, send­ing peo­ple rac­ing from their beds in­to the dark­ened streets and top­pling build­ings in moun­tain­ous vil­lages and an­cient cities not built to with­stand such force. More than 1,000 peo­ple were killed, and the toll was ex­pect­ed to rise as res­cuers strug­gled Sat­ur­day to get through boul­der-strewn roads to the re­mote ar­eas hit hard­est.

The mag­ni­tude-6.8 quake, the biggest to hit the North African coun­try in 120 years, sent peo­ple flee­ing their homes in ter­ror and dis­be­lief late Fri­day. One man said dish­es and wall hang­ings be­gan rain­ing down, and peo­ple were knocked off their feet. The enor­mi­ty of the de­struc­tion came in­to view in the day­light.

The quake brought down walls made from stone and ma­son­ry not de­signed to with­stand quakes, cov­er­ing whole com­mu­ni­ties with rub­ble and leav­ing res­i­dents pick­ing their way pre­car­i­ous­ly through re­mains. Res­cuers worked through the night to find sur­vivors buried in the dusty ru­ins.

A tent typ­i­cal­ly used for cel­e­bra­tions was be­ing erect­ed for shel­ter in the square of the im­pov­er­ished moun­tain com­mu­ni­ty of Moulay Brahim, where homes made of clay and brick were large­ly left un­in­hab­it­able. Fa­thers sobbed in­to phones telling loved ones about los­ing their chil­dren. Bod­ies cov­ered with blan­kets lay in the health cen­ter next to a mosque as doc­tors pulled shards from peo­ple’s feet and treat­ed sur­face wounds.

“There’s noth­ing to do but pray,” said Hamza Lamghani, who lost five of his clos­est friends.

Peo­ple could be seen on state TV clus­ter­ing in the streets of his­toric Mar­rakech, afraid to go back in­side build­ings that might still be un­sta­ble. Many wrapped them­selves in blan­kets as they tried to sleep out­side.

Mar­rakech’s fa­mous Koutoubia Mosque, built in the 12th cen­tu­ry, was dam­aged, but the ex­tent was not im­me­di­ate­ly clear. Its 69-me­ter (226-foot) minaret is known as the “roof of Mar­rakech.” Mo­roc­cans al­so post­ed videos show­ing dam­age to parts of the fa­mous red walls that sur­round the old city, a UN­ESCO World Her­itage site.

At least 1,037 peo­ple died, most­ly in Mar­rakech and five provinces near the quake’s epi­cen­ter, and an­oth­er 1,204 peo­ple were in­jured, Mo­roc­co’s In­te­ri­or Min­istry re­port­ed Sat­ur­day morn­ing. Of the in­jured, the min­istry wrote, 721 were in crit­i­cal con­di­tion.

“The prob­lem is that where de­struc­tive earth­quakes are rare, build­ings are sim­ply not con­struct­ed ro­bust­ly enough to cope with strong ground shak­ing, so many col­lapse, re­sult­ing in high ca­su­al­ties,” said Bill McGuire, pro­fes­sor emer­i­tus of geo­phys­i­cal and cli­mate haz­ards at Uni­ver­si­ty Col­lege Lon­don. “I would ex­pect the fi­nal death toll to climb in­to the thou­sands once more is known. As with any big quake, af­ter­shocks are like­ly, which will lead to fur­ther ca­su­al­ties and hin­der search and res­cue.”

In a sign of the huge scale of the dis­as­ter, Mo­roc­co’s King Mo­hammed VI or­dered the armed forces to mo­bi­lize air and land as­sets, spe­cial­ized search and res­cue teams and a sur­gi­cal field hos­pi­tal, ac­cord­ing to a state­ment from the mil­i­tary. But de­spite an out­pour­ing of of­fers of help from around the world, the Mo­roc­can gov­ern­ment had not for­mal­ly asked for as­sis­tance, a step re­quired be­fore out­side res­cue crews could de­ploy.

Ay­oub Tou­dite said he had been work­ing out with friends at a gym in Moulay Brahim, which is carved in­to a moun­tain­side south of Mar­rakech, when “we felt a huge shake like it was dooms­day.” In 10 sec­onds, he said, every­thing was gone.

Res­cuers were us­ing ham­mers and ax­es to free a man trapped un­der a two-sto­ry build­ing. Peo­ple ca­pa­ble of squeez­ing in­to the tiny space were giv­ing him wa­ter.

“We are all ter­ri­fied that this hap­pens again,” Tou­dite said.

The epi­cen­ter of Fri­day’s tremor was near the town of Ighil in Al Haouz Province, rough­ly 70 kilo­me­ters (43.5 miles) south of Mar­rakech. Al Haouz is known for scenic vil­lages and val­leys tucked in the High At­las, and vil­lages built in­to moun­tain­sides.

Ab­der­rahim Ait Daoud, head of the town of Ta­lat N’Yaaqoub, told Mo­roc­can news site 2M that au­thor­i­ties were work­ing to clear roads in Al Haouz Province to al­low pas­sage for am­bu­lances and aid to pop­u­la­tions af­fect­ed, but said large dis­tances be­tween moun­tain vil­lages meant it would take time to learn the ex­tent of the dam­age.

The Mo­roc­can mil­i­tary de­ployed air­craft, he­li­copters and drones and emer­gency ser­vices mo­bi­lized aid ef­forts to the hard­est ar­eas, but roads lead­ing to the moun­tain re­gion around the epi­cen­ter were jammed with ve­hi­cles and blocked with fall­en rocks, slow­ing res­cue ef­forts. Trucks loaded with blan­kets, camp cots and light­ing equip­ment were try­ing to re­gion that hard-hit area, the of­fi­cial news agency MAP re­port­ed.

On the steep, 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.

World lead­ers of­fered to send in aid or res­cue crews as con­do­lences poured in from coun­tries around Eu­rope, the Mid­dle East and a Group of 20 sum­mit in In­dia. The pres­i­dent of Turkey, which lost tens of thou­sands of peo­ple in a mas­sive earth­quake ear­li­er this year, was among those propos­ing as­sis­tance. France and Ger­many, with large pop­u­la­tions of peo­ple of Mo­roc­can ori­gin, al­so of­fered to help, and the lead­ers of both Ukraine and Rus­sia ex­pressed sup­port for Mo­roc­cans.

The U.S. Ge­o­log­i­cal Sur­vey said the quake had a pre­lim­i­nary mag­ni­tude of 6.8 when it hit at 11:11 p.m. (2211 GMT), with shak­ing that last­ed sev­er­al sec­onds. The U.S. agency re­port­ed a mag­ni­tude 4.9 af­ter­shock hit 19 min­utes lat­er. The col­li­sion of the African and Eurasian tec­ton­ic plates oc­curred at a rel­a­tive­ly shal­low depth, which makes a quake more dan­ger­ous.

Earth­quakes are rel­a­tive­ly rare in North Africa. Lah­cen Mhan­ni, Head of the Seis­mic Mon­i­tor­ing and Warn­ing De­part­ment at the Na­tion­al In­sti­tute of Geo­physics, told 2M TV that the earth­quake was the strongest ever record­ed in the re­gion.

In 1960, a mag­ni­tude 5.8 tremor struck near the Mo­roc­can city of Agadir and caused thou­sands of deaths. That quake prompt­ed changes in con­struc­tion rules in Mo­roc­co, but many build­ings, es­pe­cial­ly rur­al homes, are not built to with­stand such tremors.

In 2004, a 6.4 mag­ni­tude earth­quake near the Mediter­ranean coastal city of Al Ho­ceima left more than 600 dead.

Fri­day’s quake was felt as far away as Por­tu­gal and Al­ge­ria, ac­cord­ing to the Por­tuguese In­sti­tute for Sea and At­mos­phere and Al­ge­ria’s Civ­il De­fense agency, which over­sees emer­gency re­sponse.

As­so­ci­at­ed Press writ­ers An­gela Charl­ton in Paris, Ahmed Hatem in Cairo, and Bri­an Mel­ley and Ha­dia Bakkar in Lon­don con­tributed to this re­port.

BY SAM METZ AND MOSA’AB ELSHAMY

MAR­RAKECH, Mo­roc­co (AP)