Frantic search for girl as Algeria quake toll tops 2,000

RESCUE workers fought against time yesterday to try to find an 11-year-old girl believed to be alive in the rubble of a building as Algeria’s earthquake death toll passed 2,000, with nearly 9,000 hurt.

The hunt for Sabrina in the belly of a collapsed building in a small coastal town east of the capital nearly four days after the quake offered a glimmer of hope to what is otherwise no longer a search for the living but for the dead.

"We are still hoping to find people alive, time matters and it's 86 hours after the quake so we just don't know," said Nathalie Molimard, a leader of one a team of French rescue workers sent to Algeria from Paris.