CORSO, Algeria, 25 May 2003 — Grief turned to anger as stunned survivors from a devastating quake in Algeria faulted inadequate rescue efforts and shoddy construction for contributing to the death toll, which approached 1,800 yesterday.
Facing shortages of food, medicine and blankets and often forced to dig by hand in search of survivors, some blamed the high death toll on a lack of outside help and mechanical diggers. Others directed their anger against builders, accused the government of having turned a blind eye to substandard construction and faulted corruption.
“Our building is still standing because it was built by an honest man,” said Lies Boumeridja, an egg and poultry vendor in Boumerdes in the quake zone. The official news agency APS said the Boumerdes region counted 1,110 dead.
Pointing to a ruined neighboring building, Boumeridja added: “That house over there used to be filled with lovely people, but it was built by villains.”
Angry residents booed and threw stones at President Abdelaziz Bouteflika when he went to view the devastation. Dozens of plainclothes policemen held back hundreds of people who shouted: “Rulers, murderers!”.
“Tents! Water! We are short of everything!” came the angry cries from the crowd. “Boo! Get out! We don’t need you here!” the crowd shouted, encircling the president.
Officially, the death toll from the 6.8-magnitude quake reached 1,785 yesterday. At least 7,691 people were injured.
But the number was expected to rise as bodies are pulled from the rubble. Hakim Mohand, of the Algerian civil protection unit in Algiers, said the death toll could reach up to 3,000.
“This is the construction of Mafiosi,” said survivor Karima Bensallah at Bordja El Kiffan, an eastern suburb of Algiers, where most of her neighbors died in the collapse of a building that was less than two years old. Few are known to have escaped alive from the apartment block where 35 families lived.
Bensallah’s neighbor Biloum Sidmed said emergency services failed to arrive for at least four hours after disaster struck, and that he had rescued 10 people himself.
In the wake of the tragedy, Bensallah is living in the street. “People are expected to fend for themselves,” she said. “No one knows whom to go to.”
The government has announced that families of victims would receive 70,000 dinars ($8,900) for each family member who died, but angry survivors give little credence to the offer.
“The army has been here, but without equipment that could help us get people out,” said one man in the epicenter town of Zemmouri as he stood among mounds of blankets, clothes and sticks of bread donated by well-wishers across the country. And then his tears came. “We are all pulling together, God knows we are doing our best. It’s the least we can do.”
The government said it was racing against time to prevent the outbreak of epidemics due to bodies rotting under debris.
