Bulldozers attack rubble of ravaged city

Press, 20 October 1980, Page 9

Bulldozers attack rubble of ravaged city

NZPA — '* El Asnam, Algeria 4. With hopes .‘for further survivors having flickered O il t, . pulldozers have launched a . mass attack on the rubble of the former city of - El Asnam, ' which was ravaged by an earthquake nine days ago. - ■ H e a v y earth-moving equipment — bulldozers,

scrapers, cranes, steam shovels — are roaring from dawn till dark, loading dump trucks with thousands of cubic metres of-shattered concrete and twisted girders. Mixed in with the ruins are the household furnishings of the people who used to live in The buildings. The work goes on before

the listless gaze of men, women, and children who lived through the most murderous natural disaster. in Algeria’s modern history, j . The final count is not in, but the death toll may run as high as 20,000. Forty thousand injured people have been taken to hospital, and 10 times that many remain homeless, though some have found temporary shelter under canvas. There are still not enough tents, though the Algerian Red Crescent has set up 7000 during the past week. Another 30,000 are needed. An airlift of international aid continues to pour into Algiers. The situation is even more dramatic in some isolated villages, where the quake crumbled houses, ■ changed the riverbeds of some wadis (water courses), and filled in wells.