Donations of cash and supplies are piling up in the Netherlands for the families of 2,122 victims of the earthquake in Morocco and another 2,400 wounded.

The United Nations estimates that 300,000 people have been affected by the earthquake of 6.8 on the Richter scale on Friday night. It is the worst earthquake since 2004, and its epicentre was under the High Atlas Mountains, where the most casualties occurred.

The Dutch government has pledged to donate €5 million for the emergency effort and the cities of Amsterdam and Rotterdam have said they will give a euro per resident to help earthquake victims.

Initiatives have sprung up across the Netherlands to collect aid and goods for those affected. The Red Cross is running an appeal, Giro 6868, which by Monday had collected more than €1.2 million, the organisation said.

Some concerns were raised on Monday that international offers of help were being tightly controlled by authorities in Morocco. A Dutch earthquake rescue team, which helped in Turkey, is at home and on standby.

There are 178,000 people in the Netherlands who were born in Morocco and another 189,000 people with one or more parents born there, according to CBS statistics office.