Beacon of light in darkness

AN 18-month-old baby has been pulled alive from the rubble of a building which collapsed in Algeria's earthquake.

The rescue of Yousra Hamenniche in Boumerdes, the worst hit area of the country which lies some 30 miles east of the capital Algiers, took place 36 hours after the tremor hit.

"Rescuers at Boumerdes, helped by a number of volunteers, pulled a baby of one-and-a-half years from the ruins... the life of this miraculous baby is no longer in danger," reports stated the country's radio as saying.

Hopes of finding survivors were briefly rekindled after the baby girl was rescued from the rubble.

The earthquake has killed nearly 1,500 people and injured 7,000.

The baby girl's rescue was the only bright spot in an otherwise grim day for specialist teams who had flown in overnight from Europe to help the rescue effort.

They spent the day pulling bodies out one by one from the mangled concrete of buildings.

Deputy Interior Minister Mohamed Kindil said the death toll from the country's worst tremor in more than 20 years, which struck on Wednesday night, had risen to 1,467. At least 7,207 people were injured.

A source close to the health ministry, who asked not to be named, said that more than 2,200 may have died.

Anger mounted among residents of the stricken town of Boumerdes who, delving with just sledgehammers and bare hands into the debris to find their loved ones, complained that help had come too late.

Some angrily accused builders of erecting unsafe structures in a known quake-prone region.

"I have no family left. My wife, my daughter, my granddaughter, my son and my grandson are dead," said soccer coach and local celebrity Brahim Ramdani as he stood beside the flattened three-storey building which had been his home.

"I know you can't do anything about natural disasters, but I am angry because nobody came to help us."

The worst devastation was in the city of Reghaia, just east of Algiers, where a 10-storey block of 78 apartments collapsed. About 250 bodies had been pulled out so far, rescuers said.

"Search, search!" one of the rescuers urged his trained dogs as they disappeared into a mass of broken and crushed concrete that was once a four-storey building.

"We are going through each building bit by bit with sniffer dogs," said Jianni Savio, co-ordinating a team of 10 rescue workers from Verona, Italy, which arrived on Thursday night.

"There are still chances to find people alive, but the destruction here is very bad."

Measuring 6.7 on the Richter scale, the quake was felt as far away as Spain. Tens of thousands of Algerians spent a second night sleeping in the open for fear of after-shocks that could bring down buildings.