UK team's desperate hunt for quake survivors

Medics hope to set up clinics in disaster zone mountains

- PHIL CARDY

BRITISH rescuers are in a race against time in Morocco, working in remote villages devastated by the earthquake that killed almost 3,000 people.

Members of UK International Search and Rescue are scouring huge piles of rubble high in the Atlas Mountains, in the desperate hope that some buried in the disaster may still be alive.

And UK MED - a team of medics - is waiting for the green light to set up field clinics so that it can provide urgently needed treatment after the local health system collapsed.

We watched the ISAR team working in Imi N'Isli, where 15 people died when their homes collapsed in the 6.8-magnitude quake.

Simon Forster, of Hampshire Fire and Rescue, said: "Our primary objective is saving lives, to identify and rescue casualties, look for survivors.

"We have also been treating the walking wounded. We treated five people today."

His team saved a donkey, too, which was trapped in the rubble for a week.

Simon said: "The village elders asked for our help. Local people were putting themselves at risk trying to reach it.