Algiers | Tuesday
THE Algerian government on Tuesday put the official death toll after violent storms ravaged Algeria at the weekend at 579, but the country’s press said thousands may have been killed in Algiers alone.
Rescuers continued to search for bodies trapped under tonnes of rubble in the low income district of Bab El Oued, the hardest hit sector of Algiers, and warned that the final toll there could be dramatic.
The official death toll puts the number of dead in Algiers at 538.
Rescue and salvage operations had not yet begun on Tuesday in several sectors of Bab El Oued, which was engulfed by a mudslide on Saturday after torrential rains battered Algiers.
Citing several sources taking part in the rescue operations, daily newspapers El Watan and L’Expression said 1 000 victims could have been killed in Bab El Oued alone.
El Watan also reported that some 100 young girls were thought to be trapped in a disused church that served as a training centre for seamstresses.
The church was engulfed by mud at the weekend.
On his first visit to Bab El Oued since the catastrophe, Algerian President Abdelaziz Bouteflika was met there by angry youths, shouting slogans against his government.
The youths in the district, which is a hotbed of Islamic extremist activity, chanted “Allah Akbar” (God is greater) and the name of Osama bin Laden, the Saudi-born extremist suspected of having masterminded the September 11 terror attacks in the United States.
On Monday evening, the youths from Bab El Oued marched through the streets of Algiers in small groups crying, “Government — murderers” and “Bab El Oued martyrs”.
The press also criticised Bouteflika for taking three days to visit the scene of the catastrophe in Bab El Oued, calling his visit a “failure” and saying the president was “booed.” – AFP