Rabat – The road to the village of Amslouh in Chichaoua province remains cut off due to rockslides caused by the devastating El Haouz earthquake, preventing humanitarian aid from reaching the affected population.

Fortunately, there were no deaths recorded in this village, but the mud houses were reduced to rubble and no longer habitable, forcing its people to bed the ground and the sky.

Ibrahim Edello (a resident of the village) says to Al Jazeera Net that he was traveling on the night of the earthquake, and tried to return home last Saturday, but the rockslides destroyed the roads and prevented the crossing of any vehicle.

Ibrahim had to walk 17 kilometers to the village, only to find it in ruins after all the houses were destroyed.

Residents of the village of Amslouh, which is located on the top of Mount Oskenkten, sleep next to the valley, sharing the food available, and their eyes on the road waiting - until the third day of the earthquake - for the arrival of the authorities or community volunteers, and work is still continuing to repair the damaged road, explains Edilo.

All the residents of Teknarin are sleeping in the open after their 160 homes collapsed, and they were also cut off from the world after the road to them was cut off.

The houses that did not collapse in the village of Teknarin cracked their walls and residents are in the open for fear of collapsing (Al-Jazeera)

For his part, says the Secretary-General of the Association "Technarin for Development and Solidarity" Mustafa Aguiar – in an interview with Al Jazeera Net – that the authorities succeeded in breaking the isolation from them a day after the earthquake, and opened the road with the help of bulldozers, and delivered humanitarian aid includes tents, food and mattresses from some associations and benefactors, as he supervises his role as an associative actor in the region to receive humanitarian aid from donors and redistribute it to the residents of the village.

The road to the village of Tamangast in the province of Al-Hawz was also cut off due to the collapses, so the youth of the village volunteered with the help of a bulldozer to remove stones, rocks and dust and open them to facilitate the passage of vehicles, according to what a resident of the village Abdel Rahim Ait Ero told Al Jazeera Net.

Residents of Tamangast are waiting for the road to be opened to facilitate rapid humanitarian access to the village, whose homes have all been destroyed and whose members live in terror in the open with every aftershock.

Mechanisms helped clear collapsed rocks to open the way for aid to be delivered to affected villages (Al Jazeera)

Besieged and stricken villages

The Al-Hawz earthquake, whose epicenter was in an area known for its rugged mountainous terrain, cut off a number of roads leading to the affected villages, making it difficult for rescue and humanitarian personnel to reach them, as well as vehicles and trucks.

Since the first day of the earthquake, the Ministry of Equipment and Water has worked to open roads to mountain villages, employing a team of engineers and technicians, and bringing in vehicles from several cities such as Casablanca, Rabat, Fez and Oujda, to remove accumulated stones and restore traffic.

With each road opened, trucks transporting aid rushed to reach the affected areas, to transport humanitarian aid to the affected people and try to relieve them, with the help of volunteers from various Moroccan cities, who in turn collected aid from citizens.

In turn, Moroccan citizens flocked to contribute through community initiatives to help those affected, and trucks and cars set off towards the affected areas, carrying aid including water, foodstuffs, paramedical materials, cleaning materials, mattresses and blankets, to be distributed in the targeted areas in coordination with local authorities.

In several cities, civil associations have placed trucks in neighborhoods and near supermarkets to collect citizens' donations, and their volunteers are sorting and packaging them and then transporting them to the affected areas, and citizens responded intensively to donate what they could to support ordinary citizens, who live in remote and marginalized areas, and whose misery has been increased by the earthquake.

Some assistance teams were able to reach the village of Tafakaght in Al-Hawz province after removing the collapsed rock accumulations (Al-Jazeera)

Volunteer Experience

Associative volunteer Salwa Al-Hisoufi set off with the "Mobaderoon team" from the Moroccan city of Salé on Saturday night to the villages of the Amizmiz community in the stricken province of Al-Haouz to transport humanitarian aid.

She says to Al Jazeera Net that she received calls from many of her acquaintances offering their donations and contributions in order to transfer them to the affected villages, and Salwa and her team were able to load aid from food, blankets, bread and mattresses in a truck and cars, and headed towards their goal.

And in an exhausted voice, Salwa talks – for Al Jazeera Net – about scenes she saw in villages lived what they described as "the Day of Resurrection", and explains that they distributed aid to the residents of some villages of Amizmiz, but they found it difficult to reach other villages because of the difficulty of the paths that can not be reached trucks and cars, so they used some animals.

"The residents are living in difficult conditions; some people are still buried underground, I have seen the exhumation of 90 bodies by the residents of Emmentala village, and they are still working non-stop to extract more victims," Salwa added.

Volunteer Salwa Al-Hisoufi works as part of the "Mobaderoon Team" to distribute aid in the villages of Amizmiz (Al-Jazeera)

Red Crescent Volunteers

Moroccan Red Crescent teams contribute extensively to rescue efforts and aid to earthquake victims, and Mohamed Bendali, head of the ambulance, youth and disaster management department, explained that the Red Crescent teams are trained to deal with crises and disasters, and act as a support to the authorities in these difficult situations.

Bendali told Al Jazeera Net that there are currently 230 volunteers in the field, in the provinces of Al-Haouz, Chichaoua, Marrakech and Taroudant, where they give first aid to the wounded and provide psychological support.

During the first 72 hours, Red Crescent members focused on rescue and ambulance, he said, and then began distributing humanitarian aid such as tents, food, blankets and potable water, an operation that will continue for weeks. He pointed out that the Red Crescent is working on a detailed assessment to determine the short, medium and long-term needs, whether it is providing food and living supplies to those affected or psychological and health support for them.