Earthquake wreaks devastation on Algeria

IT WAS a scene from hell - after a massive quake tore through the earth, the desperate cries of women mingled with the harsh wail of ambulance sirens.

Blocks of buildings lay in ruins. Countless bodies were trapped under the wreckage of Algeria's earthquake where the death toll last night stood at 1,092. More than 6,000 people had been injured.

"The women screamed, the children cried, people yelled, God is Great!" said Hakim Derradji in Rouiba, near the epicentre. "It was horrible, it was like we had been bombed."

The scene in Rouiba was repeated across the quake zone east of Algiers ravaged by the worst tremor to hit the country in more than 20 years.

The 6.8-magnitude quake crumbled apartment blocks, knocked down walls and toppled trees. Weeping survivors wandered stunned amid the destruction, and the injured clogged hospitals. The fate of some people buried under shattered buildings is still not known.

The quake was the most devastating to hit Algeria since a pair of tremors west of the capital killed 2,500 in October 1980. The quake hit at about 7:45pm on Wednesday, wreaking the worst damage in towns near Thenia, 40 miles east of Algiers, the capital.

In Dergane, near the epicentre, eight members of the same family including a month-old baby were killed as they sought shelter in their cellar.

"The whole city centre has been razed to the ground," said M'Hamed Harkane, a 34-year-old male nurse from Thenia. "I have my father, my mother and my brother there. I don't know if they're dead they probably are."