BBC Report –
Thousands feared dead in Algerian quake
Two big earthquakes have
struck the northern Algerian town of
An official report said up to 20,000 had died and many tens
of thousands have been injured or are missing.
The main hospital, a big department store, the central
mosque, a girls' school and two housing complexes have been destroyed.
In 1954, an earthquake killed 1,657 people in El Asnam, which was then called Orleansville.
Risk of typhoid
The first quake hit just before 1330 local time. It measured
7.3 points on the Richter scale - the biggest ever recorded for that part of
Three hours later there was a second quake registering 6.3
points.
Telephone lines between El Asnam
and the capital,
The damage to the local hospital is so bad that casualties
are being sent more than 100 miles (160km) to
In the town centre where the damage is worst, whole blocks
of flats have been reduced to heaps of rubble.
A central four-storey hotel collapsed under the weight of
its roof, demolishing all 1,509 rooms beneath and burying many of the
occupants.
A lot of buildings collapsed, but their flat roofs made of
reinforced concrete remained intact, crashing down on top of the crumpled walls
and creating tomb-like spaces beneath.
Within hours of the earthquake, many giant earth-moving
machines were on the scene helping remove the rubble that buried so many
people.
Most of the bodies have been taken to the grounds of the
local hospital for identification.
The rescuers are trying to recover the bodies as quickly as
possible because of the risk of a typhoid epidemic.
A mass vaccination programme is
already planned for later in the week while demolition teams are regularly
disinfected to try to limit the likelihood of the disease occurring.
The town's population has tripled since the last quake in
1954, with the result that although this was a less powerful upheaval, it
caused much more concentrated damage.
The town centre was home to 150,000 people and another
50,000 lived in the surrounding villages, where hardly a building has been left
standing.
Doctors and medical staff have been working without a break
since the quake struck but in the outlying areas many more doctors and
medicines are needed.