Algiers | Thursday
RESCUE workers on Wednesday pulled dozens more corpses from mounds of rubble and mud in Algiers, where hundreds of people were still missing after storms turned part of the seaside city into a graveyard.
Officials said 651 died from weekend storms across the country, 604 of whom lived in Algiers, where a working-class neighbourhood was engulfed in a mudslide and residents were swept away to sea.
The press feared the death toll would climb beyond 1 000.
Workers and residents meanwhile pulled more than 60 bodies from the debris in Bab El Oued, a poor area that suffered the brunt of ferocious winds and a torrential downpour on Saturday. Some 500 people died in the Islamic district.
Grief-stricken relatives abandoned hopes of finding survivors. Only two people were found alive on Sunday, 24 hours after after the unprecendent catastrophe.
Situated at the foot of hills, Bab El Oued was submerged by torrents of mud that washed away people, market stalls, vehicles and homes when the storm hit.
On Wednesday rescue workers said their gruelling work was hampered by lack of access to the affected areas in the densely populated district, where many roads were still blocked by storm debris.
Bulldozers and other vehicles that could get access were trying to dig through six metres of mud.
Health teams were meanwhile being sent in to check the quality of drinking water and prevent outbreaks of waterborne diseases.
Authorities feared that putrefying corpses buried under the mud could pose further health risks.
The number of people missing after the flash floods was estimated at between 200 and 400, according to the papers, while another 300 people were said have been injured.
Embittered Bab El Oued residents have blamed city authorities for making the impact of the storms worse, by having cemented up drains in the 1990s to deprive armed Islamic extremists of an escape route after attacks.
The drains were never unblocked.
The rehousing of some 1 500 families officially listed as homeless because of the storms was proving a headache for authorities, with scores of people not affected by the deluge trying to put in housing applications.
One local official said he believed at least 90% of applications for rehousing had come from “false victims”. The moves were delaying efforts to find alternative accommodation for those whose homes were destroyed.
Offers of assistance were meanwhile pouring in.
The European Commission said in Brussels late on Tuesday that it had earmarked 758 000 euros ($668 000) in emergency humanitarian assistance.
That aid will be distributed by the Commission’s ECHO agency for operations involving the Red Cross and Red Crescent societies, the French arm of Medecins du Monde and the Belgian wing of Doctors Without Borders.
It will be largely used to fund the building of temporary shelters and provide clothing, blankets, drinking water and medical assistance.
The Swiss government announced in Berne it was sending 40 tons of emergency aid to the north African country and 400 000 Swiss francs (272 000 euros) in aid money to the Algerian government.
At the Vatican, Pope John Paul II appealed on Wednesday to the international community to come to the aid of Algeria.
The Pope asked that “the solidarity of all Catholics and concrete support from the international community be extended to these brothers”. – AFP
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