this is "nightline." >> byron: tonight, morocco tragedy. a devastating earthquake. towns and villages destroyed. >> this is my son. >> he was 7 years old? >> yes. >> byron: the heartbreaking loss as the death toll nears 3,000. >> my mother and my father and my brother and my son. >> byron: our team on the ground in one of the hardest hit areas.

>> the roads are often very hard to get down. and that's a major climb for the rescuers to get to remote areas. the urgent search for those trapped beneath the rubble. the rush to get aid to those who need it. plus, no time to panic. >> right on the knife's edge where things are the most intense. >> byron: matt gutmann, abc's fearless globe trotting correspondent. >> it's you can hear the constant incoming and outgoing of the shells. >> byron: taking on some of the most dangerous ain signments, but behind the scenes struggling with a crip iping disorder. >> therapy wasn't helping. pharmacy wasn't helping. i tried the unorthodox. >> byron: what he has learned that can help others. >> juju: "nightline" will be right back.

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>> byron: good evening. thank you for joining us. we begin with that horrific earthquake in morocco. it's the most powerful one to strike the country in more than 100 years, hitting near the historic city of marrakech. the death toll now soaring to nearly 3,000 with about as many injuries. the rescue teams now frantically searching for survivors. abc's tom soufi burrage on the ground tonight in morocco.

>> this is my son. >> this is your son? >> yes. >> he was 7 years old? >> yes. >> he's beautiful. photos on her phone are all that she has left of her 7-year-old son. what is the situation like for you right now? how do you feel? >> i'm not good. i'm not good. >> reporter: after a devastating earthquake took him and seven other family members. >> my mother and my father, my brother, my son, and son for m brother. and the two wife for brother, and one children. >> reporter: grief as rescuers pull her father's body from the debris. today all that is left of her home is this pile of rubble. she is one of tens of thousands

who have lost so much after a 6.8 magnitude earthquake hit morocco, the deadliest the country has seen in more than 60 years. this is the moment the earth started shaking on friday night. panic in the streets of marrakesh. the violent tremor sending people rung, buildings crashing down around them. screams of horror at this wedding. this man just escaping as debris falls. homes destroyed, cities and villages reduced to rubble. >> wow. oh my god. >> reporter: on day three of search-and-rescue efforts, the death toll nearly 3,000 with another 2,500 injured. the shaking felt right across the country. intense tremors in bustling historic center of marrakech. but the epicenter struck to the south in rural mountain villages. >> we've come higher into the mountains, and the devastation here is widespread across this

entire area. we'll told there are some communities higher into the mountains where the help has simply not arrived. in a nearby village, we meet mohammed and his son abu bakr. their home was destroyed and they suffered injuries, they consider themselves lucky. what was it like when the earthquake started? >> like a wind, you know. i hear the wind from the window. so as i see going like that, shaking, you know. then i says to my wife, we can run and go out. so just as we coming out, all of them, i am the last one, so i got this problem into my face, but we believe in our god. >> reporter: mohammed ran out of his house with his wife and kids just before it caved in. he and his family members are now living in a tent, while many other friends and relatives did not survive. >> yes, we got some families, which is cousins and some

families die. >> we're sorry. >> so actually, right now it's still people on the houses or been destroyed. so as you see those tracks and all those workers, they're still digging to find people as soon as possible. >> how many people do you think have died in your village? >> you know, it's too hard to count how many people because it's too much. >> reporter: before the quake struck, this region was known for its beauty, a popular tourist destination. as a tour guide, mohammed is now worried about the impact this could have on his livelihood. >> this is the best place for any tourist. tour cyst a good income in morocco, and there is good economy, it brings good economy. >> reporter: aid is arriving. we found local people handing out basic supplies. but reaching the quake's epicenter by road, even from these remote areas can take several hours. rescue teams flying in overhead. today helicopters dropping aid, finally reaching some of the

most isolated communities. the true death toll in those areas still not clear. >> i'm here, just starting to get up in some of the atlas mountains. some of the other teams have gotten up there delivering food. >> reporter: relief also coming in from around the world. jose andres' world central kitchen providing food in the hardest hit villages. >> some of the beings, especially the ones built on the hillsides that completely collapsed. so people are making makeshift shelters like this. >> reporter: team rubicon is also here. the organization has been responding to disasters for the last 13 years. first founded after a massive earthquake struck haiti in 2010. >> it was actually an initial deployment of eight personnel that has now grown to a force of over 175,000 volunteers. >> reporter: the remote mountainous terrain in morocco providing an extra challenge for teams on the ground. >> there are a lot of rural communities that are impacted, and we haven't been able to, or

the moroccan people haven't been able to assess all the damage. >> reporter: but like many other aid groups, rubicon is limited on what it can actually do until the government gives it the green light. right now they just have a small team of scouts on the ground. >> so really, really important job of theirs is to ensure that number one, we're welcomed. and number two, that our teams are built and equipped to be able to serve the needs morocco is having shortfalls on. and as soon as we get their permission, our goal is to have all that work behind us so we can get the people into the field as quickly as possible. >> reporter: so far morocco has accepted help from spain, qatar, the united arab emirates and the uk, but has yet to accept offers of aid from the u.s. >> the secretary and the foreign minister pledged to stay in close contact as the response efforts continue. >> you can imagine with entities all over the world saying they have these unique resources, ideally the moroccan government is able to compose teams that have the greatest impact on the survivors.

>> reporter: many tourists and visitors were caught in the chaos as well. >> the reason we were in marrakech was because we play with the national soccer team. >> reporter: tom sate's feet is the head coach of the gambian national soccer team. he and his team were in country, set to compete when the earthquake struck. >> the mirror fell down, glasses fell down, parts of the air condition were flying out of the walls, and also some things of the ceiling fell down. >> reporter: players slept outside of their hotels, bracing for after shocks. some of them still shaken up, reminded of their experiences earlier this year in turkey when massive earthquake killed 50,000. >> these players were in turkey were really in shock, and they really thought it was the end. >> reporter: still, the team played their scheduled game at a field within the earthquake's affected region. and they qualified for the africa cup of nations early next year. >> we are here to play a game,

but what means, there are so many people close to us mourning about dead family and friends. we requested in the first place if it was possible to postpone the game. but later on saturday we got the news that we had to play. >> reporter: the team now safely back home. but so many residents here have nowhere else to go. instead, left holding on to hope and rebuilding. >> now we are waiting until we see as our homes, how we can build our new homes, and then we are having good new life again. >> byron: our thanks to tom. coming up, no time to panic. abc's matt gutman and how he overcame a lifetime of crippling panick attacks. my a1c was up here; now, it's down with rybelsus®.

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volvo mild hybrids. no plug-in required so you can go the extra summer mile. summer safely. abc's matt gutman has covered everything from war zones to floods and burning man. tonight he shares with my co-anchor juju chang how he conquered a lifetime of crippling panic attacks. how he is hoping to help others. >> i was always thought to be right on that knife's edge where things are at their most intense. >> juju: matt gutman is no dang stranger to dangerous situations. >> the explosions of rock. >> and war zones. >> you can hear the constant incoming and outgoing on shells.

>> juju: on the trail of terrorists. >> come out to filthify. >> reporter: and humanitarian disasters. >> a sense of how hungry people are and december separate they are here. >> wow. >> juju: he has aced some of the most daring assignments for abc news. >> matt gutman, abc news. >> i actually found writing about yourself is much more difficult than i had anticipated. >> juju: but behind the brave face on tv was a man with a very private struggle. >> i had been having panic attacks on air for the entire time i was on tv. and they made me missable. but when things were calm, and there was the exception of perfection, especially when presenting on air, i crumbled. >> juju: in his book, "no time to panic," matt opens up about his lifetime of debilitating anxiety and panic attacks, often triggered by the very essence of the job he loves, a tv live shot. >> i used to smoke cigarettes before lives because i thought it would give me some magical power. >> had lucky underwear in the

rotation that i thought also maybe gave me some extra panic beating powers. they didn't, by the way. >> juju: you had what you called sort of the textbook impostor syndrome. and that that in many ways contributed. >> i was afraid of being found out as not talented, as a failure, as someone who couldn't do tv, who was not a good journalist, who couldn't possibly be up there with his pierce, people who i respected. i just didn't feel like i was equal. >> juju: his searing insecurities finally caught up with him when he says an on-air panic attack led him to make an egregious error, a mistake that would lead to a month-long suspension from abc news, and he writes public shame and personal regret. >> during the suspension, i decided i have to figure this out or leave tv news, because i don't like it. it's making me miserable. and i need to figure this out.

but had hundreds of panics before, and i always sailed through because i was able to keep on track somehow. but i don't know. this one was different. i had to find a way to get to that well of grief where i stored all of this sadness, all of this pain. and i hadn't been doing a very good job of it as an adult. >> juju: it would lead to a soul-searching journey that matt says forced him to take a hard look at his own childhood trauma after his father was killed in a plane crash. >> that 12-year-old boy who lost his dad, and that well of grief that you tapped into, what came out when you cried those hours and hours, days and days? >> it's making me emotional now. what came out, just pain. >> thank you, thank you, thank you. >> i just excavated a thousand pounds of pain that had been sitting on the chest of this little boy who was 12 years old and who pushed it off for years, who played sports, who excelled,

who pushed himself into high achieving as a way to, you know, keep the pain at bay. >> juju: matt's not alone at keeping that pain at bay. panic disorder affects an estimated 6 million adults in the u.s., nearly 3% of all americans. countless patients in emergency rooms experiencing heart attack symptoms may actually be suffering from a panic attack. women are twice as likely to suffer from panic disorder, but many mental health experts say the condition is severely underdiagnosed. >> people who suffer from anxiety, and particularly panic are quiet. they feel shame about it there is a lot of stigma. the shame and secrecy sort of amplify the panic. >> juju: "no time to panic" chronicles matt's internal journey and his external adventures in his quest to curb that panic. this book is definitely not a road map. >> no. >> juju: this is a lot of kids, don't try this at home. >> some of, that yes. there was no road map. and that's one of the problems. i was so eager to try to find

ways to find altered states that would help me feel and tap into this deep-seated pain and grief, that i was looking for almost anything. therapy wasn't helping. pharmacology wasn't helping. so i tried the unorthodox. >> juju: the unorthodox, up to and including experimenting with mind-altering psychedelics. >> the idea for me was altered states helped me get to a place in my own psyche, helped me reach what i call this well of grief that i couldn't access to in my right mind. i needed help getting there. >> juju: tell >> there was no matt gutman. there was nothing to mourn me. so i was a speck in a limitless universe. and i stayed there for some time. you've conquered the thing that is the scariest in the world. you've been through this death zone and you've come out of it. it also helps reframe the way you think about yourself.

>> juju: after turning himself into a human elaborate, trying exposure therapy and cognitive behavioral therapy, he dropped the prelive shot rituals that amped him up in favor of calmer methods. >> this is actually from a hypnotist who i worked with. but it's a great relaxation technique. >> juju: okay. >> and after a while, you get to do it in your brain. you just imagine that the shoelace exists. >> juju: okay. >> so you close your eyes. you take a deep breath hoelt holdi holding on to the top knot and exhale. >> juju: it makes you focus on something other than the thoughts in your mind. >> it's a combination of mindfulness, hypnosis and meditation. >> juju: prayer. it looks like a rosary bead. >> buddhist knots. >> exactly. >> juju: by reporting his way out of his panic, the husband and father of two says his path to healing involved learning how to quiet his inner critic. >> this is about constant work,

and it's about being gentler on yourself. it is about retiring that drill sergeant who tells you you're terrible all the time. conquering a lifetime of panic attacks is not just never having a panic attack. it's knowing that if i have a panic attack again, it's going to be okay. >> byron: our thanks to juju. next tonight, tributes and tears. 22 years after the 9/11 terror attacks. ]

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and finally tonight, america remembers the day that changed us all. [ bell ringing ]. >> marking september 11th at the pentagon. in shanksville, pennsylvania, honoring the crew and passengers on united flight 93. and in ground zero, reading the names of those who perished.

>> vincent paul >> herman charles brockheimer. >> 22 years ago, i was there at ground zero, like so many forced to run for my life as the first and then the second tower fell. too much was lost that day, but much was learned. one key takeaway for many of us as a nation, we are better together. there is no disaster we can't overcome, no divide we cannot bridge, together. all of us. that's "ghtline" for this evening. thanks for the company, america. good night.