ALGERIA: The toll of dead and wounded in the Algerian earthquake continued to rise yesterday, with the Algerian interior minister confirming at least 1,092 people were killed and close to 7000 injured.
Those figures were expected to rise further and President Abdelaziz Bouteflika declared three days of national mourning.
More than 200 aftershocks, some registering as high as 5.7 on the Richter scale, continued throughout the night. Geologists said the initial quake measured 6.7, making it the most severe tremor in Algeria since the El Asnam quake which killed 3,000 people 23 years ago.
The towns of Boumerdes and Rouiba, east of the capital, looked like a war zone, with dozens of bodies lined up under sheets and blankets, pancaked buildings, and rescue workers wearing helmets digging through mountains of rubble. Some of the victims died when they threw themselves from balconies in panic.
Hospitals were overwhelmed with casualties. At the Mustapha Hospital, the biggest in Algiers, police pushed back the crowd that formed to seek news of relatives.
"We are managing a veritable catastrophe, which unfortunately has not yet given all of its results," the Prime Minister, Mr Ahmed Ouyahia, told RTL radio. "The only thing certain is that we still have more people under the wreckage."
Thousands of Algerians spent the night outside, in their cars, in public parks, town halls or schools. At least 57 buildings collapsed in Algiers alone, 70 km from the epicentre of the quake at Thenia. The three-storey National Sports Centre was among the destroyed buildings. A Romanian gymnastics coach, a swimming coach, a weightlifter and a cook all died there.
Most Algerians were watching a sports match on television when the earthquake struck at 7.45 local time on Wednesday evening. Radio and television stations urged people to remain calm. "Leave your houses, turn off the gas and do not use the lifts," broadcasters said, amid appeals for medical personnel to report for work, and for blood donors.
Mr Boubker Belkadi, a reporter for AFP, described shrieks of terror, screams and weeping in his 14-floor high-rise building in the eastern suburbs of Algiers. The electricity went out with the first tremors, and women and children ran down the stairs in pitch darkness.
"I was on the balcony," Lounis, who lived on the top floor, told Mr Belkadi. "I was looking towards the centre of Algiers when I saw what looked like a huge cloud of dust. I felt dizzy, then the building started going back and forth like a swing. Then all my furniture fell over. The ceiling lamp in the living room went out the window."
The inhabitants of Mr Belkadi's building quickly organised themselves, shutting off the gas valves on the ground floor and standing guard against looters. Many residents ran out of their flats without closing doors, and one looter was rumoured to have been beaten up by angry neighbours.
Within hours, the government was criticised for failing to enforce building safety codes. Unscrupulous Algerian builders are known for diluting cement with sand to keep their costs down.
But the Algerian authorities appear to have learned from the previous disaster, a mudslide that killed nearly 1,000 people in the poor Algiers district of Bab El-Oued in November 2001. High-ranking officials were booed when they belatedly visited that site, and the government was criticised for the slow pace of rescue operations.
Within hours of the earthquake, President Bouteflika - who is campaigning for re-election - visited the devastated area of Boumerdes. Algerian television showed him holding the hands of a middle-aged woman in a hospital bed whose face and lips shook uncontrollably.
"The worst is over," the interior minister, Mr Yazid Zerhouni, told residents of Boumerdes. "The State has the means to re-house almost all of those who have lost their homes," he promised. Eighteen months after the Bab El-Oued catastrophe, many families are still homeless, and the government has been accused of favouritism in distributing aid and housing.
Poor communications and damage to the highway east of Algiers complicated rescue operations. "There are no more telephone connections," the Algerian Ambassador to Paris, Mr Mohamed Ghoualmi, said. "It seems all the cables have been broken. The embassy is trying to establish radio contact." The techtonic plates of Africa and Europe meet in northern Algeria. "Unfortunately we've been living through these calamities for centuries, and unfortunately we shall continue to live through them," Mr Ghoualmi said. Algiers was destroyed by an earthquake that killed 20,000 people in 1715. Wednesday night's quake was the seventh most severe tremor to hit the north African country in 50 years.
President Jacques Chirac, who recently made the first State visit by a French president to the former colony, spoke of his "very great emotion" and of France's "solidarity" with Algeria. Paris yesterday dispatched four air force Transall jets carrying 200 trained rescue workers and 15 tonnes of supplies to Algiers. Germany sent 22 technicians, sniffer dogs and sophisticated equipment for locating bodies.