Protests Erupt in Algeria as Quake Toll Nears 2,000

Home>>World

Last updated at: (Beijing Time) Sunday, May 25, 2003

Protests Erupt in Algeria as Quake Toll Nears 2,000

Shock turned to fury in Algeria on Saturday as earthquake survivors accused the government of turning a blind eye to cowboy construction and standing idly by while the death toll headed toward 2,000.

DISCUSSION

CHINESE

SEND TO FRIEND

Shock turned to fury in Algeria on Saturday as earthquake survivors accused the government of turning a blind eye to cowboy construction and standing idly by while the death toll headed toward 2,000.

President Abdelaziz Bouteflika was greeted by jeering crowds on a visit to the worst-hit areas three days after the North African country's most devastating quake in more than 20 years.

He was embraced by a crying survivor. But soldiers had to hold others back as an angry crowd pressed in on him and, in a rare display of public defiance, the street was soon lined with people chanting "assassin."

The head of state's security personnel formed a path for his motorcade to pass, but along the route people jumped forward to kick the car and throw objects.

The daily Le Matin said Prime Minister Ahmed Ouyahia had been heckled by protesters and his interior minister had been pelted with stones in towns east of Algiers earlier in the week.

According to the latest official figures, 1,875 people died and 8,081 were injured in Wednesday's quake, which measured 6.7 on the Richter scale. Well over 1,000 people were still missing.

Weary rescue teams from around the world found only rotting corpses under the sun-baked rubble.

But they kept at the job, using sniffer dogs, heat sensors and sound probes to search for signs of life under the compacted concrete of buildings that simply sank to their knees.

A flicker of hope came on Friday when French rescuers pulled a 2 1/2-year-old girl alive from her devastated home.

But optimism vanished on Saturday at what remained of a hotel in the Mediterranean seaside village of Zemmouri-El-Bahri, where the day before Japanese and Turkish rescuers freed a man who had survived for 50 hours in a tiny cavity.

"This was a six-floor building, it collapsed like a pancake," said the leader of the 61-strong Japanese team, nodding toward a mound now barely more than one story high.

"Maybe there are still people alive, but we had the dogs and the equipment here this morning. There was nothing."

"The search will go on until tonight," the head of a French rescue team said in the town of Boumerdes, where more than half of the quake's victims were claimed. "We don't expect any survivors after that."

"WE HAVE HAD NOTHING"

Prime Minister Ouyahia had arrived at the same conclusion, saying in comments broadcast on state radio: "The reality is that a moment will come when the search for survivors is over."

But there was no quiet acceptance among the people.

Some of the 15,000 made homeless by the disaster accused the authorities of failing to provide more rapid assistance and allowing unscrupulous contractors to put up so many flimsy buildings in a notoriously quake-prone area.

The government said it was racing against time to prevent the outbreak of epidemics due to bodies rotting under debris in temperatures above 30 degrees Celsius (86 Fahrenheit) and a lack of both clean running water and sanitary facilities.

Civil protection officials ordered rescue workers to wear face masks and spray affected areas with chemicals.

Health Ministry press officer Slim Belkacem told Reuters a center was being set up in Boumerdes to monitor for outbreaks of disease, but officials were facing an uphill battle there because four local hospitals had been destroyed.

Efforts continued apace to restore damaged phone lines, power and water supplies and the authorities said they would start destroying buildings which had been cracked beyond repair.

But in a sign that normality was still some way off, much of Algiers was plunged into darkness by a power outage on Saturday night. From a peak in the city of 4 million the emergency blue lights of generators could be seen dotting the landscape.

State radio said authorities were gradually restoring supplies. Some areas would not be fully restored until Sunday, it said.

Aftershocks from Wednesday's earthquake have continued and one was felt in a town south of Algiers about an hour before the blackout, but it was not clear if that caused the outage.

Source: agencies

Questions?Comments? Click here

Quake Death Toll Tops 1,600 in Algeria, Expected to Rise Further

China Offers 50,000 US Dollars for Quake-hit Algeria

President Hu Sends Condolences over Algerian Quake

Chinese Crack Down on Public Spitting ( 2 Messages)

United States Afraid of its Own Shadow: Mahathir ( 8 Messages)

Int'l Community Aids China's SARS-control ( 6 Messages)

BBC Leader Criticizes US Coverage of War against Iraq ( 17 Messages)

US Interference in China's Internal Affairs Doomed to Failure: FM Spokeswoman ( 7 Messages)