643 dead and toll rising in Algeria quake

Rescue workers struggled to save survivors from the rubble and international aid workers rushed to Algeria today after a powerful earthquake killed at least 643 people and injured thousands.

The 6.7 magnitude quake crumbled apartment houses, knocked down walls and toppled trees in the area east of Algiers, the capital.

Weeping survivors walked amid debris and hospitals were choked with the injured. Many warned the death toll would increase as more bodies were found.

“Unfortunately we have not finished establishing these increasingly tragic figures,” Algerian Prime Minister Ahmed Ouyahia said in the quake zone. “What is worrying is that there are still many under the rubble.”

Algerian national radio put the toll at 643 dead and 4,696 injured. The Wednesday night quake was the most devastating to hit Algeria since 1980 when 2,500 were killed west of the capital.

Helmeted rescue workers dug furiously through the wreckage of apartment houses and homes in a desperate search for survivors. One man said he saw panicked people jumping from a hotel window.

The quake was deadliest in towns around Thenia, 40 miles east of Algiers.

The quake hit about 7.45pm, cutting electricity in some neighbourhoods of Algiers and causing panic throughout the city. About 10 aftershocks rippled through the area in the hours that followed, though the city was calm by Thursday afternoon.

“It was a great shock,” said Mohcine Douali, who lives in the centre of Algiers. “I ran out to the street with my wife and my two daughters, and no one has been able to sleep because of the aftershocks.”

Numerous towns throughout the Boumerdes district east of Algiers were devastated, and residents of the region were swarming to area hospitals, with injuries or to seek news of loved ones. Dozens of bodies were laid out, their families weeping over them.

In Algiers, several building collapsed, reducing homes to piles of rubble mixed with kitchen utilities, clothing or a bicycle.

People thronged the streets, preferring to be outdoors for fear of another tremor.

“I saw the earth tremble. I saw people jump from the window of the hotel,” said Icham Mouiss in Boumerdes.

Interior Minister Nouredine Yazid Zerhouni travelled to Thenia and Boumerdes. A call for blood donors was issued and medical personnel and employees of Sonelgaz, the state company that supplies electricity, were asked to pitch in and help.

France, the old colonial power, sent rescue teams as did Spain and Germany.

A hospital in the town of Baghlia was seriously damaged by the quake and numerous roofs in towns around the epicentre caved in, the Interior Ministry said.

Chinese citizens were among victims of Algeria’s devastating earthquake, with six trapped under rubble and another seven injured, China’s Foreign Ministry said.

Butch Kinerney, spokesman for the US Geological Survey, called it a shallow earthquake that was capable of causing ”significant damage and injuries.”

The earthquake was the latest tragedy to visit the North African nation where an Islamic insurgency that has left 120,000 people dead has raged for more than a decade.

In November 2001, more than 700 people were killed in flooding around the capital.