Algeria fears more than 1,000 dead in quake

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 tonight climbed inexorably toward 1,000 with more than 5,000 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 Wednesday night by the worst tremor to hit the country in more than 20 years.

Rescue workers rushed to pull survivors from the rubble and country after country dispatched personnel, goods and sniffer dogs to the North African nation.

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.

Officials warned that with so many bodies probably buried in collapsed buildings, the death toll was certain to 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.”

The Interior Ministry put the toll at 770 dead and more than 5,000 injured. But more than 1,000 people were tonight said to be still missing.

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 about 7.45pm, wreaking the worst damage in towns near Thenia, 40 miles east of Algiers, the capital.

In Algiers, electricity was cut in some neighbourhoods, causing panic throughout the city. About 10 aftershocks rippled through the area in the hours that followed, and many people spent the night outside in fear of further quakes.

The city, however, was mostly spared from the devastation further east, and by this afternoon nerves had calmed – but the memories were terrifyingly fresh.

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

Algerians living abroad were desperate for news about their families. Dozens crowded around a ticket counter at Paris’ Orly airport, hoping for a ticket home.

“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.”

Former colonial power France dispatched two rescue teams and officials were in contact with Algeria to see what additional help will be needed.

Members of International Rescue from Britain were on their way tonight.

Germany also sent rescue experts, search dogs and special recovery equipment. Hundreds of Algerian Red Crescent staff and volunteers administered first aid to the injured and transported them to hospitals.

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

The quake was the latest tragedy to hit the North African nation, where an Islamic insurgency that has left some 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.