An aftershock rattled Moroccans on Sunday as they mourned victims of the nation’s strongest earthquake in more than a century and worked to rescue survivors, while soldiers and aid workers raced to reach desperate mountain villages in ruins.

The disaster killed more than 2,000 people, a number that is expected to rise.

The United Nations estimated that 300,000 people were affected by Friday night’s magnitude 6.8 quake and some Moroccans complained on social networks that the government was not allowing more help from outside.

International aid crews were prepared to deploy, but some grew frustrated waiting for the government to officially request their assistance.

The Bolton News: Morocco

“We know there is a great urgency to save people and dig under the remains of buildings,” said Arnaud Fraisse, founder of Rescuers Without Borders, who had a team stuck in Paris waiting for the green light.

“There are people dying under the rubble, and we cannot do anything to save them.”

Help was slow to arrive in Amizmiz, where a whole chunk of the town of orange and red sandstone brick homes carved into a mountainside appeared to be missing.

A mosque’s minaret had collapsed.

“It’s a catastrophe,” said villager Salah Ancheu, 28. “We don’t know what the future is. The aid remains insufficient.”

Residents swept the rubble off the main unpaved road into town and people cheered when trucks full of soldiers arrived. But they pleaded for more help.

Those left homeless — or fearing more aftershocks — slept outside on Saturday, in the streets of the ancient city of Marrakech or under makeshift canopies in Atlas Mountain towns like Moulay Brahim, among the hardest-hit.

The worst destruction was in small, rural communities that are hard for rescuers to reach because the roads that snake up the mountainous terrain are covered by fallen rocks.

These areas were shaken anew on Sunday by a magnitude 3.9 aftershock, according to the US Geological Survey(USGS).

Friday’s earthquake toppled buildings not strong enough to withstand such a mighty quake, trapping people in the rubble and sending others fleeing in terror.

A total of 2,012 people were confirmed dead and at least 2,059 more people were injured — 1,404 of them critically, the interior ministry reported on Saturday.

Flags were lowered across Morocco, as King Mohammed VI ordered three days of national mourning starting on Sunday.