We begin tonight overseas with a race against time, as rescue teams in Morocco scour the ruble in a furious search for survivors. The area’s strongest earthquake in more than a century has killed nearly three thousand with thousands more injured, but those numbers are expected to rise in the hours and days ahead. The destruction and devastation are beyond words, with at least one hundred thousand children impacted by the disaster and that’s according to UNICEF. The epicenter of the 6.8 quake is located in the country’s High Atlas Mountains where buildings crumbled and left communities cut off from the outside world. Villagers digging by hand or shovels because getting heavy equipment into these remote areas has been nearly impossible. International groups including specially trained dogs, have joined local rescue efforts.

We’re still in that crucial time known as the golden period, the best window for finding people who may still be alive trapped beneath the rubble. Now, more than seventy-two hours since the quake, that windows is closing. Day three of the rescue effort with Moroccans clinging to the hope of finding survivors. But with every body removed from the rubble, hope is slipping through the blistered fingers they’ve been digging with. Across Morocco, footage captures the moment this North African country erupted into panic and now into a race as they search for the living and grieve for the dead. The heartache and destruction are worse here in the remote High Atlas, where twisting roads, steep cliffs, and rustic dwellings, the very things that make these mountains so jaw-dropping, made the earthquake and its aftermath so deadly. Many of these homes are made out of bricks, so they don’t just collapse, they crumble. And they don’t leave any air pockets for survivors, who tend to just choke to death on the dust. And if there was anyone to save, locals tell us, they had to save themselves. Towns are cut off and survivors forced to sleep on the streets. Aid has been slow to trickle in, and the government hasn’t allowed many foreign crews in. So much of the relief effort has relied on locals like these, driving back and forth to the grocery store in Marrakesh, more than thirty miles away, to bring food, water and supplies. Now, Morocco has been delivering aid, but this is a lot of remote ground to cover. US Secretary A.B says the US is standing by, ready to give help of its own, but Morocco has yet to accept that offer.