In a critical period for search-and-rescue teams, the Moroccan government has given few updates about its response and the scope of the destruction.
With debris and fallen rock blocking roads to Moroccan villages hit hardest by an earthquake, many residents began burying their dead and foraging for scarce supplies on Sunday as they waited for government aid.
That wait may be lengthy.
The most powerful quake to hit the region in a century spared neither city apartment dwellers nor those living in the mud-brick homes of the High Atlas Mountains, but many in the remote and rugged areas of Morocco have been left almost entirely to fend for themselves.
Survivors, faced with widespread electricity and telephone blackouts, said they were running low on food and water. Some bodies were being buried before they could be washed as Muslim rituals require.
The Friday night quake, whose magnitude has been put at 6.8, killed more than 2,100 people and injured more than 2,400, Moroccan state television reported on Sunday.
In one devastated town in southern Morocco, Amizmiz, a woman’s cry suddenly pierced the air. She had just learned after rushing to the town that her two brothers were dead, explained her nephew, Lacher Anflouss, 37.
“A lot of people are reacting quietly at first because they still haven’t processed it,” Mr. Anflouss said. “And then when they finally process it …” His voice trailed off.
The Moroccan state media released footage of helicopters airlifting aid to remote areas, and King Mohammed VI said he had ordered the government to provide shelter rapidly and rebuild houses for those in distress, “particularly orphans and the vulnerable.”
But the government has been generally tight-lipped since the earthquake struck, releasing little information about rescue efforts and providing only infrequent updates on casualties, and some Moroccans took to social media to criticize the response as slow and uncoordinated.
In the Atlas Mountains village of Douar Tnirt on Sunday, people sleeping outside for the third night lined up for desperately needed aid, including blankets, diapers and water. But the supplies came not from the government, which villagers said had not offered any assistance since the disaster, but from a charity in Marrakesh.
Abdessamad Ait Ihia, 17, who grew up nearby, rushed back to the area on Saturday from Casablanca, where he works, to check on his family. He had seen no sign of government rescue or relief workers, he said.
“We just want aid and people to help us, that’s all we want,” he said.
About 20 miles away in another mountain village, Azgour, both power and phone service had been knocked out, so it was not possible even to call for outside help. Young men following screams in the dark pulled people out of the rubble themselves with their bare hands, all the while fearing further collapse.
“We didn’t wait for anybody to start saving people’s lives,” said the village’s imam, Abdeljalil Lamghrari, 33.