THOUSANDS of homeless Moroccans struggled to rebuild their lives yesterday after a powerful earthquake that killed nearly 600 people forced survivors to spend the night in the open.

Hopes dimmed of finding any more people alive in the rubble of devastated mud-brick homes in villages scattered around the Mediterranean port city of Al Hoceima. The quake, measuring 6.5 on the Richter scale, struck early on Tuesday as many people were sleeping in their houses. ?The death toll has risen to 564,? Health Minister Mohamed Cheikh Biadillah told state television 2M.

Dozens of aftershocks and rain made relief efforts even more difficult in outlying villages in the foothills of the Rif mountains.

Many people spent the night in the open or under sheeting and other makeshift shelters because their homes were destroyed. Some said they just felt safer away from buildings. ?It?s a total disaster, the world needs to help us,? Hassan Hmidouch, head of the town council in the village of Im-Zouren, told Reuters Television.

Villagers, some digging with their bare hands or shovels to search for survivors, said heavy equipment and sniffer dogs were needed. ?They sent the military which basically ordered us to stop digging, but they couldn?t do much themselves for lack of equipment,? said Abdelkhalek, a teacher who did not want to give his full name.

In his village of Ait Kamara, 18 km to the south of Al Hoceima, many houses were flattened like cardboard boxes. ?I woke up to a big bang, I don?t even remember how I managed to escape from the house,? said Abdelkhalek.

His parents, three brothers and one sister were killed when their home was reduced to rubble in the nearby hamlet of Ait Abdelaziz, where he said 70 percent of houses were destroyed.

?My sister was shouting, begging me to lift a big, heavy door under which she was trapped. We could not, she died,? he said, sobbing.

In Al Hoceima, a fishing port and beach resort of about 70,000 inhabitants, damage was limited but authorities struggled to deal with the dead, injured and homeless from nearby areas. ?As soon as we think we?ve seen all the dead and injured, more keep coming in ambulances,? said a doctor at the main Mohammed V hospital, where dozens of corpses were laid out.

Many of the injured were being treated in army barracks, health centres and charity homes. Others were airlifted to the capital Rabat, Casablanca and Meknes. North Africa?s last major earthquake hit neighbouring Algeria last May. It measured 6.8 on the Richter scale and killed 2,300 people near the capital Algiers.

Morocco, situated on the northwest corner of the African continent and separated from Europe by the narrow Strait of Gibraltar, suffered its worst recorded quake in 1960. It destroyed the Atlantic city of Agadir, killing 12,000 people. Josephine Shields, an official with the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC) in Tunis, said six villages within 15 km of Al Hoceima had been hit by Tuesday?s quake.