to hit the area in over a century. the epicenter in the high atlas mountains near marrakesh is a yunesco world heritage site. equipment and manpower are limited in this region. patients are waiting outside hospitals, and residents are sleeping on the streets, fearing intense aftershocks. more than 700 people are in critical condition. officials believe the death toll will steadily rise. i want to bring in ben wedeman for more on all this. ben, you've been to the area. set the scene for our viewers, what the topography is like, who lives there, why it's a tourist attraction and how an effarthque of this magnitude is cause so much damage. >> this earthquake happened just a few minutes after 11:00 p.m. friday evening. from the video we've seen of cctv for instance, there was a small jolt followed by this massive earthquake. you see buildings just collapse in one cctv video. a block of buildings just falls into the street, sending tens of thousands of people sleeping outside last night. the death toll as of a couple of hours ago from moroccan state television was that 1,037 people had been killed so far. more than 1200 wounded, 721 in critical condition. the hospitals are clearly overwhelmed. people are waiting outside to be seen by doctors. other areas basically hospital beds being put in the street because there's no room outside. people have been lining up in marrakesh, the main town in that area that has been hit, lining up to donate blood. but there have been aftershocks, more than a dozen in the hours since that earthquake struck. it's important to keep in mind that the epicenter was about 45 miles southwest of marrakesh in the high atlas mountains. i've been there. i've camped and hiked in that area. it's some very deep ravines, roads that are easily blocked by falling boulders. we've seen nighttime video of roads blocked in that area. there are lots of small towns and villages in the high atlas mountains, some of them severely affected by the earthquake. we've seen accounts from people in that area. one woman fatima told cnn, i barely got the chance to grab the children and run out before i saw my house collapsing in front of my eyes. the neighbor's house has also collapsed and there are two dead people under the rubble. she told cnn that rescue teams had not reached their town hours after the earthquake struck. so this is really one of the problems in this area, is that in addition to the fact that it's remote, the moroccans don't have enough manpower and equipment to reach all of these areas. it's a problem, and they desperately need help from abroad. that help is coming, but it couldn't come soon enough. >> not at all. ben wedeman, thank you so much. hopefully when it does get there, it will assist greatly in trying to find more survivors. cnn researcher benjamin brown was on a rooftop in marrakesh when the earthquake hit. he said it took a while for people to realize what was happening. here's more. >> a large cloud of dust had been shaken off the ground and just erupted into the sky, covering basically the entire sky in dust. when the shaking then stopped, me and other guests in the hotel made our way to open grounds far away from high-rises and buildings that may collapse with the damage they already suffered and also with potential aftershocks. that's really when the panic started to kick in for people, when people saw the true extent of the damage, but also of the horrific injuries. i saw many people carried out of buildings on stretchers, one person wrapped in a carpet being brought into the street. some of them appeared to have very bad head injuries, a lot of blood. i even saw one instance in which a woman had to be turned away by an ambulance crew because the ambulance was full of injured people. they simply said they couldn't take her in the ambulance. >> our thanks to benjamin brown for his reporting. for more information about how you can help victims of the morocco earthquake go to cnn.com/impact. or text morocco to 707070 to donate. president biden is in india, where world leaders agreed on a joint statement laying out their share d views on climate change and economic development. the declaration stopped short of explicitly condemning russia's invasion of ukraine. the president met one on one with indian prime minister modi. noticeably absent are vladimir putin and xi jinping. president biden was asked how xi's absence might affect the summit. >> president biden, have president xi's actions impacted the summit? >> it would be nice to him here, but no. >> bring us up to speed on today's developments at the summit. >> reporter: really the main surprise today was that joint declaration that prime minister modi announced midday. leading up to today, democrats had been working furiously to try and develop some consensus language when it came to the invasion into ukraine. gaining any agreement on that front was always going to be difficult. now, what did emerge fell short of an explicit condemnation of the conflict in ukraine of russia's invasion. it was talked in more broad terms about the importance of protecting sovereignty, territorial integrity, about the importance of not using nuclear weapons. to some it did seem like a watered down version of what the g 20 came up with last year. white house officials do say this is a consequential declaration. that was the word jake sullivan used earlier today. they do make the point that president biden and other leaders were able to get consensus from countries that haven't necessarily been as forceful in the condemnation of russia, countries like india, but also south africa and brazil. certainly this statement still reflecting some deep divisions among this grouping. this is a fractured moment for the g 20, perhaps most explicitly seen in the absence of president xi and president putin from this summit. you heard president biden say today it's not necessarily affecting progress on the ground here. and he has been able to use those leaders' absences as an opening somewhat to make the case for united states's persistent role in the world. president biden did come armed with several proposals, several ideas that would help bolster the united states's roll in the developing world in particular, including reforming the world bank, unlocking what the white house said could be hundreds of billions of dollars in new loans and investments, making it a more attractive lender to those countries than china. of course, the other major announcement that president biden made today was this new transit court that would extend through area to the middle east and eventually onto europe. this would really provide a major competition to china as it seeks to bolster its global trade routes. so president biden certainly looking to use his presence here to make the case for sustained american commitment abroad as he concludes this g 20 summit. >>ing thank you so much. new details today on the manhunt for convicted killer danelo cavalcante, who escaped from a pennsylvania prison last week. authorities say he was sited twice within the search area on friday, evading almost 400 officers. he has been spotted eight times since he escaped, terrifying local residents who have been advised to stay inside and lock their doors. >> reporter: it's important to remind viewers since that escape on august 31st, we have seen confirmed sightings by authorities on a regular basis, the most recent being two confirmed sightings just yesterday afternoon inside of that search perimeter. that is critical here, because it tells investigators that it's safe to assume that this escaped convict is still being searched. the search perimeter includes longwood gardens. it's a botanical gardens that's about a thousand acres roughly of meadows, gardens and woodlands as well. that's what's really concerning authorities here. you see a usps vehicle approaching one of the roadblocks. the driver of that has to step out and open up the back of his vehicle so the state patrolman can take a look. this is what's happening time and time again as authorities really trying to keep closed this perimeter. longwood gardens has been closed due to public safety. they said in a statement the safety of the staff and guests is priority. as a result because of this escape, they have closed down. really on any other late summer weekend, that would be packed with families enjoying festivities. but the realities for the residents in this part of southeast pennsylvania, that man is still on the loose. because of that, there's still a sense of fear among some, but also we have seen people go about their day to day lives. kcavalcante continues to be on the loose. >> what about security at the prison? >> we learned yesterday one of the members of the staff at the prison was terminated, according to officials. there's still an ongoing investigation. authorities making it clear that termination happened. the investigation is still moving forward making it clear there are a lot of questions to be answered. the big priority is finding this 34-year-old convicted killer. still to come, a judge rejects mark meadows' bid to move his election interference case to federal court. >> much later, a much anticipated women's final at the u.s. open. american coco gauff straight ahead. nce shows listerine is 5x more effective than floss at reducing plaque above the gumline.e. for a cleaner, healthier moututh. ahhhhh. listerine. feel the whoa! here's how tommy lost 30 lbs on noom weight. i'm tom. noom helped him use psychology to lose weight. the miful aspect made me feel more conscious about what i was eating and why i was eating it. i's actually working. lose weight and make it last with noom weight. struck out with the cheap seats? 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>> i think it's very bad for mark meadows' case. while the judge was very express in saying he wasn't really trying to influence his thinking on the other cases, it's clear he did and he does, because of the very clear and and a very careful 49-page opinion he wrote that is not likely to be overturned on appeal. >> now donald trump's lawyers say they are considering asking to move his case to federal court as well. doesn't that ruling for mark meadows kind of obviate any kind of move like that? >> they're different situations. one of the points the judge made about mark meadows is that he, like all federal employees, is under the so-called hatch act, which prohibits campaign activity by federal employees focusing on the executive branch in particular. the president, though, is exempted from the hatch act. so he's outside that. but yet the president still has to show he was acting under color of his office. disrupting a state constitutional process that's delegated by the constitution to the state of georgia is not an easy hurdle to overcome. in other words, the president has no business in getting himself involved in a georgia election. >> let me pivot to that unredacted georgia special grand jury report which was made public yesterday. in it the grand jury recommended charges against 39 people, including senator lindsey graham and two former u.s. senators from georgia. but fulton county district attorney fani willis ultimately indicted 19 people, including trump. what do you make of that decision by willis? did that kind of remove arguments that she was in any way influenced politically by who she indicted and why? >> i think it shows she's a very careful prosecutor. the evidence was presented, apparently 75 witnesses appeared before the special grand jury. they were guided in the law, the special grand jurors, by her staff. they had the whole picture. they reached conclusions. it shows how careful the prosecutor was in making her ultimate decision in narrowing that list down, virtually cutting it in half. >> there was also another big development this week in the federal case over donald trump's handling of classified documents. a former attorney for a mar-a-lago i.t. worker says he has struck a cooperation agreement with the special counsel's office in exchange for not being prosecuted. what's the significance of that and how might that impact that case? >> this is a witness who was originally represented by a lawyer who was representing a number of trump employees, still is. nauta, one of the defendants, is amongst his clients. there's a request now pending before the court to have what's called a garcia hearing, where nauta and others can do what the witness who's now broken rank has done, which is get advice into what all his options are. nauta might well decide after the garcia hearing, hearing that he has other options, he might too break. this lawyer is being paid for by donald trump. the new witness, the witness who's cooperating, is getting the assistance of a public defender. so that option may be available for nauta as well. this could blow up in donald trump's face, paying for all these lawyers. >> john dean, good to see you. thank you so much . coming up, american tennis star coco gauff about to play her first grand slam final. the 19-year-old will face the world number two for the u.s. open title. j.p. morgan wealth management knows it's easy to get lost in investment research. get help with j.p morgan personal advisors. hey, david! ready to get started? 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