Death toll reaches 1,000

Rescue workers tore at piles of rubble yesterday, hoping to find survivors of an earthquake in the Algerian capital and nearby towns that killed more than 1,000 people and injured nearly 7,000.

Measuring 6.7 on the Richter scale, the quake sent terrified residents running into the streets in Algiers and towns to the east along a populous Mediterranean coastal strip. The tremor, felt as far away as Spain, was Algeria's worst in more than 20 years.

The worst devastation was in the town of Reghaia, just east of Algiers, where a seven-storey block of 78 apartments collapsed, and more than 350 people were feared to have died.

Hospitals in many towns found it almost impossible to cope. In some areas, bodies had to be piled up outside the hospitals and patients were treated in the open air.

Some 24 hours after the quake struck, Algerian state radio quoted Interior Minister Noureddine Yazid Zerhouni as saying the death now stood at 1,092 and 6,782 people had been injured. Rescuers said hundreds were still missing.

Mr Zerhouni said it was still a preliminary figure. The fate of some people buried under shattered buildings is still not known.

In Algiers around 60 buildings were destroyed, among them the Training Centre for the National Sporting Elite.

"There's nothing left of the building. Over 200 dead were found last night and today more are being recovered," said a Reuters photographer on the scene.

"You can smell the victims. Rescue workers are saying `One, here, one here' as the search dogs find the dead."

In Rouiba, a relatively prosperous city some 30 kilometres from the eastern edge of Algiers, one building after another was reduced to rubble.

"I have never seen such a disaster in my life. Everything has collapsed," said Yazid Khelfaoui, whose mother was killed. The rubble of his apartment block was all around him.

The earth shook at 7.44 p.m., when many families were gathered at home for dinner.

Algerian television showed dozens of bodies lined up under sheets and blankets, some clearly children. "There were so many wounded, we couldn't count them," one harassed doctor said.

"It's a tragic moment," Prime Minister Ahmed Ouyahia told state radio. "It's a misfortune that hits the whole of Algeria."

In the city of Boumerdes on the coast, media spoke of people jumping from windows when the quake struck.

Bulouenes Sidiali, a resident of one block that collapsed to its foundations, said the building was only six months old.

"My friend went crazy this morning when he found his wife dead," Sidiali said. "The government must bring the owners of this firm to justice. They are criminals."

Mr Ouyahia said security forces were on alert to stop looting in a country riven by a decade of violence by Islamist rebels. The strife has cost more than 100,000 lives and burdened an economy potentially wealthy from natural gas and oil exports.

Some 200 aftershocks hit northern Algeria in the first two hours after the quake and authorities said more would follow.

At Algiers' principal Mustapha hospital, families gathered to inquire about loved ones. Police forced back a growing crowd.

"I want to see my brother. I want to know if he is dead or still alive. Please let me inside," said Ahmed, 40, who had come to Algiers from Rouiba. He wept as he spoke.

Algerian television showed President Abdelaziz Bouteflika, visibly moved, holding the hands of a middle-aged woman in hospital whose face and lips were shaking uncontrollably.

Mr Bouteflika later declared three days of national mourning from today.

At the sports centre, a three-storey building in its own grounds, at least four people died - a Romanian gymnastics coach, a national swimming coach, a weightlifter and a cook.

France dispatched 120 rescuers with sniffer dogs and equipment to its former colony. Germany sent 22 technicians, also with dogs and high-tech sound and imaging equipment. Spain said it was sending a field hospital with 10 doctors and a search team with sniffer dogs. Britain is sending 42 firefighters and two sniffer dogs.

Most of Algeria's 32 million people live in the north, away from the Sahara desert. Algiers, on the coast, is home to at least 2.6 million.

The US Geological Survey said the quake's epicentre had been 70 kilometres east of Algiers. It said the quake was the biggest to hit Algeria since 1980, when one measuring 7.7 on the Richter scale demolished more than 70 per cent of the city of El Asnam, west of the capital, subsequently rebuilt as Chlef.

In 1994, about 150,000 were made homeless by an earthquake in northwestern Algeria that killed over 170.