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Storms kill over 300 people in Algeria
( 2001-11-11 09:53 ) (7 )

Ferocious storms have killed more than 300 people in northern Algeria, including 287 in the capital Algiers, emergency services said Saturday after homes collapsed and dry gullies became torrents.

Many of those who died were crushed when their homes were destroyed by torrential rain and very high winds or swept away by flash floods, officials said.

Interior Minister Yazid Zerhouni said the official toll on Saturday evening in Algiers was 287 people killed and 294 injured, and in the rest of the country around 20 people were thought to have died.

He said rescue services were being hampered by difficulty in moving around because so many roads had been blocked by floods and falling debris.

Zerhouni said the country was suffering from a "catastrophe" and called for "international solidarity" to help it cope.

Since the storms began on Friday morning, eight people were known to have been killed and some 20 injured in road accidents in the east of the country, according to the emergency services.

The known casualty figures were rose swiftly during the day as reports came in from across the Mediterranean coastal region, particularly around the capital.

Witnesses in the working-class Bab-el-Oued district of Algiers said that bodies were being found there that had been washed down from higher ground in the city, which is partly built on hills like other coastal towns.

Algiers was practically paralyzed on Saturday morning, because the storms caused power blackouts and flooded numerous districts, making driving almost impossible.

The rain in Algiers eased later Saturday, but more rain was forecast for Sunday.

Authorities have launched an emergency plan to get help to the victims.

At Tipaza, a town 70 kilometres (about 45 miles) west of the capital, six people were swept away by water flooding down gullies.

State television showed pictures of vehicles being swept away.

In Oran, a major port 450 kilometres (280 miles) west of Algiers, a young girl was killed when a building collapsed.

Two other children were drowned at Medea, 80 kilometres (50 miles) south of the capital.

The worst-hit parts of Algiers appeared to be outlying suburbs.

However Audin square, in the heart of the capital at one end of the main Didouche Mourad street, was thickly covered in mud and rubble, an AFP correspondent reported.

The rains came after a long dry period which had led to harsh restrictions on water usage over the past few weeks.

Just last week, amid water rationing, the ministry of religious affairs had urged that prayers should be said in the country's mosques asking for rain.

In a communique, the ministry asked Muslim prayer leaders to call on the faithful "to repent, to become closer to God by carrying out good works, and to fast in order to accomplish this prayer".

Such rain as there had been was not enough to raise water levels behind the dams and the authorities in the capital had on October 7 introduced a system to provide districts with supplies for one day in every three and only for 15 hours during that day.

Rationing has also been stringent in the east, where water riots were reported in the coastal cities of Annaba and Skikda.