Fearful families sleep on streets in quake aftermath

Panic-stricken families slept in the streets and parks of Algeria’s seaside capital for a second night, while rescuers led a frenzied hunt for survivors near the epicentre of a devastating earthquake that killed more than 1,000 people and injured nearly 7,000.

Officials said the death toll would only mount as bodies were pulled from buildings levelled by Wednesday’s temblor, the country’s worst in a generation.

Thousands of people fled their homes, complaining of shoddy construction and the fear that buildings still standing could soon collapse. Police erected roadblocks and stepped up patrols near the capital, Algiers, to prevent looting.

Entire families were among the dead. The 6.8-magnitude quake crumbled blocks of flats, knocked down walls and flattened mosques. Weeping survivors wandered stunned amid the destruction.

The injured clogged hospitals. Countless bodies were trapped under the wreckage.

Last night – some 24 hours after the earth shook – the official APS news agency said at least 1,092 were dead and 6,782 injured. An Arab-language state-run radio gave a higher toll of 1,225, as the body-count continued. Many thousands more people were homeless.

“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.”

A journalist from France-Info radio in the Boumerdes district east of Algiers reported that rescue workers from the Mediterranean port city of Marseille, France, found a survivor – a young woman.

Emergency squads also located four people trapped under the debris, two of them young girls who spoke to rescuers, the report said. The four were expected to be pulled out.

The quake hit at about 7.45pm local time on Wednesday, with its epicentre east of Algiers. It was the North African nation’s deadliest since a pair of temblors west of the capital killed up to 5,000 in October 1980, according to the US Geological Survey.

In the downtrodden Bab El Oued neighbourhood, one of the worst hit in the capital, thousands of people slept in the streets out of fear that aftershocks could bring down unstable buildings.

Makeshift tents were set up in parks for women and children.

Balconies had tumbled to the ground and stairwells collapsed on top of one another, but the apartment buildings remained standing in the neighbourhood.

“It was a close call,” Sadek Bouraoui, 32, a customs officer, said of his Bab El Oued home. “Living here risks the lives of my wife and children, but we have nowhere else to go.”

Closer to the epicentre, in Roubia, 13 miles east of the capital, the cries of women mingled with the wail of ambulance sirens. An AP reporter saw blocks of buildings in ruins, with unknown numbers of bodies trapped underneath.

Rescue services were overwhelmed. Women cried the names of their dead or injured children. Bodies were piled at the town morgue, wrapped in blankets or plastic bags. Mechanical diggers lifted away rubble.

“The building shook like a ship. I sheltered with my daughters in a door-frame. That’s why we’re still alive,” said Fatma Ferhani, 70.

Foreign aid groups and governments sprang into action, rushing over rescue workers, doctors and dogs to search for survivors. Food, blankets and medicine for the shocked, injured and homeless were on their way.

In Algiers, electricity was cut in some neighbourhoods and some phone lines were downed. The loss of power and scores of aftershocks that rocked the area in the hours after the quake caused panic.

The capital, however, was mostly spared from the devastation further east.

A four-story hotel frequently used by athletes was severely damaged, killing the Romanian head of Algeria’s track and field team and the Bulgarian-born coach of the national weightlifting squad.

Shocks were felt into the Mediterranean. The quake triggered 7ft waves in Spain’s Balearic islands, 175 miles north of Algiers, that damaged or destroyed 150 boats.

The temblor also ruptured underwater cables, cutting phone links to Algeria and seriously disrupting international communications with countries in Asia, the Middle East and the Pacific, France Telecom said.

For Algeria, the quake carried risks of political aftershocks, too.

The government has been battling Islamic militants for more than a decade and, with elections due next year, support for President Abdelaziz Bouteflika could slide if efforts to help quake survivors flag.

Muslim fundamentalists have traditionally excelled in helping the needy. To oversee rescue efforts, Bouteflika cancelled plans to join a summit of world leaders in France next week, APS reported.

Many Algerians have complained about the wobbly state of buildings and a housing shortage in the oil-rich country. In a suburb of the capital, residents have said it is not uncommon for three families – roughly 14 people – to cram into a three-bedroom flat. Others sleep in hallways each night.

Authorities called for blood donors, and medical personnel and employees of Sonelgaz, the state company that supplies electricity, were asked to help.

Messages of sympathy and help poured in from around the world.

“Our prayers are for the victims, their families, and the entire Algerian nation. The United States stands ready to help,” said US President George Bush.

France, Algeria’s former ruler, dispatched two rescue teams of 60 members each and President Jacques Chirac sent condolences. Germany sent a team of 22 quake specialists and 10 search dogs.

The European Union said it also was coordinating disaster relief efforts with Belgium, Italy, Spain and Greece, which all sent or were sending rescuers and medical staff. Egypt flew over 13 tons of food, medicine, blankets and tents.

Hundreds of Algerian Red Crescent staff and volunteers treated the injured, transported them to hospitals and mobilised blood donors.