Algeria floods toll rises to 31
2008-10-03 12:10
Algiers - The death toll in flash floods in a historic Algerian town climbed to 31 on Friday, as aid workers battled to help hundreds of homeless and the army was deployed to prevent looting, state radio said.
Fifty people were injured and about 1 000 were homeless around Ghardaia, a UN World Heritage site at the entrance to the Algerian desert, some 600km south of Algiers in the M'Zab Valley, state radio said.
Hundreds of civilian volunteers, Red Crescent officials and Muslim scouts worked round-the-clock to help those living rough. The water was 8m high in some parts of the town of Ghardaia, the report said.
Basic aid and food was arriving from nearby towns in trucks, the radio said.
Interior Minister Noureddine Yazid Zerhouni said the floods are the worst for a century.
Gas and electricity supplies have been partially revived, but there was an acute shortage of basic goods and medicines - most of which had been damaged due to the flooding.
The interior ministry sent tents, generators and 400 tonnes of first aid to the region. The army is being deployed in the area to prevent looting.
The government previously said 13 people had been killed in the floods, which have damaged some 600 homes, many of them in oasis areas.
Toll could be higher
A resident reached by telephone by AFP suggested the toll could be higher in the region following the first rainfall in four years.
"The population even talks of about 100 victims and up to 1 000 houses flooded," he said, while adding that the rainfall, which started on Monday and had become "a deluge" by Wednesday.
The resident said seasonal rivers had filled up and spilled into a larger one, which then flooded, sweeping away everything in its path.
"Authorities spoke of a flow of 900m³ per second," he added.
Several areas in Algeria were lashed by heavy rain including Djelfa - midway between Ghardaia and Algiers - where two people died.
Flooding in the Algiers region in 2001 killed more than 800 people and caused considerable damage.