An earthquake in Morocco has killed at least 2,000 people. It was the strongest to hit the country in more than a century.

• An earthquake rattled Morocco on Friday, killing at least 2,000 people and damaging historic buildings.
• Government officials said another 2,000 people were injured and expected the death toll to rise.

A powerful earthquake struck Morocco late Friday night, killing more than 2,000 people and damaging buildings and historic landmarks in major cities.

At least 2,012 have been killed and another 2,059 injured as of Saturday, The New York Times reported. Most of the deaths have been recorded around the city of Marrakech and in the central mountains near the epicenter of the quake.

Officials said they expect the death toll to rise as emergency crews reach more areas.

"We felt a very violent tremor, and I realized it was an earthquake," Abdelhak El Amrani, a 33-year-old in Marrakesh, told France24. The power and phone service, he said, went out for about 10 minutes.

Moroccans posted videos showing buildings reduced to rubble and dust. Parts of the famous red walls that surround the Old City in Marrakech, a UNESCO World Heritage site, were also damaged. Tourists and others posted videos of people screaming and evacuating restaurants in the city as throbbing club music played.

Fayssal Badour, another Marrakesh resident who was driving at the time of the quake, told France24 he stopped when he "realized what a disaster it was. It was very serious, as if a river had burst its banks. The screaming and crying was unbearable."

Rather than return to concrete buildings, men, women, and children stayed out in the streets, worried about aftershocks and other reverberations that could cause their homes to sway.

The US 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 US agency reported that a magnitude-4.9 aftershock hit 19 minutes later and that the earthquake was the largest to hit Morocco in more than 100 years.

The epicenter of Friday's tremor was high in the Atlas Mountains, about 40 miles south of Marrakech. It was also near Toubkal, the highest peak in North Africa, and Oukaimeden, a popular Moroccan ski resort.

The 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.