A young man from Cornwall who has climbed mountains across the world is now preparing to help a community in a Moroccan village following an earthquake last week. 

Dan Lilley from Helston has been taking groups of people on hikes across the Atlas Mountains which extend 2,500km across northwestern Africa including Morocco which has recently been hit by a devastating earthquake.

At around 11pm on Friday, September a 6.8 magnitude earthquake struck the country killing more than 2,800 people with many more critically injured.

Falmouth Packet: Dan used to be a former RNLI volunteerDan used to be a former RNLI volunteer (Image: Stock)The epicentre (the location on the surface of the Earth directly above where the earthquake starts) was in the High Atlas Mountains, approximately 70 kilometres south of Marrakesh. A 4.9 magnitude aftershock followed just 20 minutes later.

Over the past three years, Dan has become very close to the Imlil Mountain Community which has been helping to support people in the aftermath of the earthquake.

To provide extra support to the mountain group, Dan will travel to Marrakech on September 30, where he will meet his friend and mountain guide Hassan to buy bottled water and food to take back to the people in the Atlas Mountains who have seen their village destroyed by the earthquake.

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To help with the costs of food and drink for the people in the Atlas Mountains, Dan has now set up a GoFundMe page. You can see the page here: www.gofundme.com/f/moroccan-earthquake-imlil-village-aid.

Dan hopes he can give to the community which has always welcomed him. He said: “I want to give something back to the community who have always welcomed me and have cared for me.

“So, with the donations, I will go out there to see what people need help with and use donation money.”

No stranger to helping people, Dan has raised thousands for Cornish mental health charity Man Down.

Falmouth Packet: Parts of Morocco have been destroyed following the earthquakes in the country last week Parts of Morocco have been destroyed following the earthquakes in the country last week (Image: GoFundMe)As previously reported in the Packet, Dan wanted to look for ways to increase awareness of the dangers of depression, anxiety and loneliness following the Covid pandemic. During lockdown, Dan noticed many of his male friends were struggling with mental health, which opened his eyes to the massive impact the restrictions had on people’s mental health.

Dan then made the decision to climb six of the world’s largest and most difficult-to-navigate mountains to raise money for the charities.