magnitude earthquake, the strong oft to hit the north african nation in more than a century. >> the quake struck late last night, centered in the high mountains around the tourist destination of marrakech. the quake brought down buildings and homes and people ran into the streets. look at this video, two men run when they begin to feel the shaking. moments later you see panicked people running by and then rubble falling where those men were just moments before. look at that. >> there you go. there's the rubble falling. nearly 700 people were reportedly injured in the quake. and now there is a race to reach the victims in the most affected area. but officials say rescue teams are struggling to get to some of these places. cnn's ben wedeman is joining us now, he's following this story, ben, we know that this large earthquake hit around 11:00 p.m. local time so a lot of people must have been sleeping. what are the latest on the rescue efforts and tell us about the concerns that more people might be trapped under the rubble. >> reporter: yeah, from all accounts, we're hearing from people on the ground in that part of morocco, those rescue efforts are moving ahead at a fast pace because it is believed there's still many people under the rubble. now, the earthquake struck at 13 minutes past 11:00 friday evening. there were -- many people were at home. but also many people were still out and about. it's still warm this time of year in morocco. and you can see from that video, that people were -- in restaurants and whatnot, had to rush out into the streets. and since that earthquake took place, there have been at least a daniella aftershocks. so many people are still staying outside for fear that buildings could collapse. what we're hearing that many buildings have collapsed, not just marrakech itself. but in the towns and villages and the high atlas mountains. i've been through that area before. it's very rugged, and very difficult, for the rescue teams to reach those areas. now, cnn was able to get through 0 one woman, fatima, who lives in the remote town, and what she told us is 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 also coll collapsed. and she said there's only two dead people under the rubble. and in that particular town, the rescue workers haven't even arrived athat the point, when cnn spoke to her just a little while ago. now, we understand in addition to moroccan authorities doing what they can, and this includes the military to join in this rescue effort. for instance, united arab emirates is setting up an air bridge to provide morocco with help. israel is assembling rescue crews to send to morocco as well. in france, they've mobilized to try to assist, the mayor has assembled a team of firefighters to participate in the rescue effort. as far as the death toll, the last we heard from moroccan television is that it was at least 820 people dead, but the assumption is that that number, unfortunately, will increase. amara, victor. >> ben wedeman reporting on a very dire situation in morocco, thank you so much. we spoke also this morning with benjamin brown, he's a researcher in marrakech when the quake struck. >> he said he was on a rooftop when the quake hit. and he describes initially seeing a large dust cloud from the sky. here he is. >> able to get away far from high-rise and moors and buildings that have been damaged with potential aftershocks. that's really when the panic started to take into people. when people saw the true extent of the damage, but also, the horrific injuries. i saw many people carried out of buildings in stretchers. one person was in a car that had been brought in the street. and some of them appeared to be very bad head injuries. a lot of blood. and even for one instance in which a woman had to be turned away by an ambulance crew, because the ambulance was full of a bunch of people. they simply said they couldn't take her in the ambulance. we did mention seeing the damage there. walls had come down and in marrakech, we're speaking about a city structure with many, many old buildings, and possibly, it's the tourist attraction of this place. old walls that had fallen off, and rocks that had fallen off, the centuries-old city. just crashing into the street. yeah, a street littered in rubble and littered in piles of rocks. >> joining us now is a research civil engineer at the u.s. geological survey. keyshor, thank you for being with us, we know there's already been a 4.9 aftershock. what can we expect over the next several hours and days as it relates to potentially more of those massive aftershocks? >> yeah, good morning, victor and amara, thank you so much. before i begin, i must send my thoughts and prayers to the moroccan people, what they've been going through in the last few hours is mind-boggling. they're really going through hardship as we see these things unfolding before our eyes. coming back to your question, this earthquake was a pretty significant size, 6.8, a shock of that size can clearly produce aftershocks. and there's a small chance that an aftershock could be higher than the main shock. so far, we have recorded 4.9 which was within 30 minutes of the main shock. and the aftershock does continue. the main shock had a very sha shallow depth, and strong shooting. and 400,000 people experienced very strong shaking in this earthquake, 2.8 million people -- >> excuse me for cutting you off there, apologies, but, you know, considering that there are more aftershocks expected, i do want to ask you, considering your background as well in engineering, regarding the infrastructure of many of these buildings in the historic city like marrakech. what are your concerns in terms of these buildings and the fact that there's always compromise from the first earthquake and what might happen to them during these aftershocks? >> amara, you're absolutely right. let me explain. these buildings are very different from what we see in the united states. zwr just to give you an example, if you're coming into the country, you're typically going to look like more brick buildings, adobe constructions, stone facings, weaknesses made of extended block. so these are predominantly one to two-story highs located on columns. and even that can bring those structures down close to those epicenters. and any aftershock has the potential to bring some of these buildings down. and this affects how the rescue missions as we know how the rescue search and rescue missions should be conducted. >> i heard you say 400,000 experience strong shaking. and then you were about to give us another estimate. what was that? >> yeah. yeah, so according to the system at usgs, we experienced 400,000 to be experiencing very strong shaking. and that, itself, speaks to the availability of the large number of buildings that could be quite littered. even though you can see, even though the location was a sparsely populated area in the atlas mountain region and not really close to the major population center like the big city there. but given the high probability, it's quite obvious that you'd expect large number of casualties coming from the earthquake. the other estimate i was saying, 2.8 million which covers both ends of the areas of the epicenter region. on the north side, you have a big city. and on the south, you know, a city there which also has experienced a big quake in 1960 and killed about 10,000 people. this is a representation of this area. >> we have ten seconds, i just want to ask you, especially for the people on the ground sleeping outside, concerned about the aftershocks. at what point will the aftershocks dissipate and won't pose an issue or problem? >> like i said, that can have a number of aftershocks and activity can continue for days or weeks for that matter. so it's definitely a precarious situation where these activities will potentially continue. >> already. >> up to two weeks. >> got it. thank you for the information. we appreciate you joining us. well, president biden is in india right now for the g20 summit, a may have meeting of global leaders. biden has already met with indian prime minister narendra modi, and there's a lot more on his agenda today, including climate change, debt relief for recovering nations. >> the other big issue is who is not there, this is the first g20 summit xi jinping has chosen not to attend. and also russian president vladimir putin, the absence of biden's two chief rivals provides an opportunity for him to make a more affirmative case during the summit. cnn's jeremy diamond is following the president he's there in new delhi for us. what's the latest, jeremy? >> reporter: well, victor, the latest is that we have just turned that the g20 leaders have ing inde agreed to a joint statement, talking about territorial integrity, respecting sovereignty and deploring the consequences that the human cost the war has had, as well as the effect on global food security. rising energy prices and inflationary pressures. so it is a notable statement and the national security adviser, jake sullivan, we just heard from him in a briefing with reporters where he said this was a series of quote, quenchal on ukraine and he believes they do a very good job of standing up for principle that states can not use force to seek territorial acquisition. but at the same time, this joint leaders statement is not a joint communique which suggests there's some dwevence among the members in views here. and that is noted, where it does say here that there are other members in the g20 that expressed different views on this issue. it's very similar to the kind of joint statement that we saw from the leaders at the end of the g20 last year in bali, and all of this underscoring the fact that most members in the g20 do indeed oppose russia's war in ukraine. and russia remains a member of the g20. and china which condemns russia's invasion of ukraine, also a part of g20. this is the fact that neither xi jinping and russian president vladimir putin are in attendance at this summit. we've seen president biden throughout the day today already beginning to take advantage of that opportunity. the fact that xi jinping in particular is not here at the summit. both in making a very strong statement in the first leaders' meeting today about the war in ukraine. but then also later, as he made an appeal to developing countries that the united states, through its reforms that it's trying to makety world bank and increasing funding for the world bank is the most reliable partner for the developing countries heading into the future. very much taking a stand, offering another option. an alternative to the leadership that china has tried to stake out for the developing world. >> all right, jeremy diamond, appreciate you being there. thank you. still ahead, a troubling sign for donald trump, after a federal judge rejects former white house chief of staff mark meadows' bid to move his georgia criminal case to federal court. and a growing number of reporting sightings more than a week after a convicted killer escapes from a pennsylvania prisonon. us, they're free. really? 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>> well, the special grand jury is just giving recommendations. it's up to prosecutors to decide whether or not there's enough proof to charge, whether they have beyond a reasonable proof that they'll need at trial. but, of course, they only need technically probable cause to charge but prosecutors are always thinking ahead what they need to win at trial. and what they should charge. prosecutors have discretion. it's not always wise to charge even where they technically can. i think what the grand jury report shows us that fani willis and her team went through carefully on all of the defendants and made decisions based not solely on what the grand jury suggested but, of course what they thought they needed to do to go to trial. >> and seemingly, this would undermine some of the former president's defenders who say that the d.a.'s charges are far flung or far reaching when you consider that the grand jury recommended charges against more than double trump's co-conspirators. this would suggest these not doing that. >> i agree. i agree. it takes some air out of the claim that this is all political, and that she just charged everyone she could, anyone connected at all to the former president. i mean, you have lindsey graham and two former senators on that list. and they certainly would have been blockbuster republicans to charge. and she and her team chose not to do so. so, i think it does undercut that claim to some extent, although we're not really hearing that from republicans as we see this report get aired. >> and for some of the defendants you wouldn't expect it. now from a journalism perspective, this is good to see. we want to see as much as we can about the process and everyone involved. from a legal perspective, is this a good idea to now talk about the people who could have been, might have been charged, but were not? >> i don't think so, victor. i'm actually not happy to see this come out. you know, when you're not actually charged with a crime and yet the world knows that a grand jury recommended that you should be, you know, it kind of puts a stain on your reputation. and there's really nothing that they can do about that. they don't have an opportunity in open court to clear their name at trial now. so, i actually prefer when these things are not let out in the open, and a grand jury matters like this are kept secret. i think if they had issued a less redacted report and disclosed, perhaps, just the number of people who were recommended and not their actual names that would have given us the knowledge that fani willis and her team didn't charge everyone that the grand jury had wanted. and would actually stain the reputation of names of those in the report. so i think it's a due process violation, a privacy violation, for those people named. and i would have preferred had they not been. >> let's talk now about mark meadows' intent. he's now appealed a decision from judge jones. it says he has not even met the quite low threshold for removal to federal court for his charges to georgia state court. all of the legal analysts that i've heard from, i think including you said, there there's a defendant above all who could move the case to federal court it would be mark meadows. is it that clear that it didn't even meet 9 lowthe low threshol when you look at what judge jones wrote? >> well, it actually is not totally clear. i think that on balance, he should have lost. so, i think it's the right decision. but there aren't a lot of cases on this, actually. so, i read through judge jones' decision. i think it was right.persuasive. i think it will be upheld on appeal but there, you know, room for disagreement, because there's not a lot of legal precedent on this. i do think it's clear that he had the strongest case. it's not even clear that president trump is a federal official that he falls within the definition of the statue and the others, jeffrey clark is. i do think that others will succeed but whether or not mark meadows wins on appeal, not completely impossible. >> jennifer rodgers, thank you so much. a massive manhunt is under way for a convicted kill here escaped from a pennsylvania prison. we're now on day ten. of course, this is all amid a growing numberer of reported sightings. ♪ new from centrum. the women's choice multivitamin brand. mass geneneral brigham -- when you need some o of the brightes