The Tragedy of El Asnam

An ill-fated city is devastated again by a killer quake

Unlike Algeria's ancient coastal cities, with their crowded casbahs and narrow streets, the inland city of El Asnam in the fertile Cheliff River valley was starkly up to date. Its streets were wide, and its public buildings were modern and built of sandstone. Most of El Asnam's 125,000 inhabitants' homes were equally contemporary, and with good reason: just 26 years ago, the prosperous farming center 120 miles southwest of Algiers was devastated by a major earthquake, which killed 1,600 people. Thus the city's army barracks, sports stadium, police headquarters, hospital and grand mosque had to be rebuilt, along with 20,000 houses.

Last week, on Friday, the traditional Arab day of rest, the people of El Asnam again felt the earth move violently, not once but 20 times. The initial tremor registered 7.5 on the Richter Scale, which was slightly lower than the 7.7 recorded in September 1978, when 25,000 people were killed in northeast Iran. In El Asnam, the city was again laid waste, along with many of the farmhouses and villages in a 25-mile radius. Eyewitnesses estimated that 80% of El Asnam was destroyed; the Algerian Red Crescent initially reported that perhaps as many as 25,000 had been killed and another 200,000 injured or left homeless, without food or drinkable water. Said a Swiss official of the International Red Cross: "God knows when we'll have a reliable estimate of casualties. It could take weeks."

The quake struck at a time when most of El Asnam's office buildings and shops were closed because of the Muslim sabbath. But the streets and cafes of the residential neighborhoods teemed with families. Said a survivor: "Everything happened so quickly. The dogs did not have time to bark. It was all over within seconds." Apartment buildings tumbled like houses of cards. The walls of Le Chelif Hotel, which was the city's newest and fanciest, cracked wide open, and its roof caved in. The four-story hospital collapsed. A mosque, the city hall, police station and a girls' high school were virtually demolished.

Announcing the catastrophe to the nation on state-owned Algerian Television, a newscaster wept openly as he read the government's order mobilizing rescue squads and appealing to the public for donations of blood. Shortly afterward, French and Tunisian medical teams were dispatched to Algeria. Britain and West Germany provided emergency supplies, and Switzerland sent its famed air-rescue detachment. Because of heavy damage to railroads, highways and bridges, however, help was slow to arrive in El Asnam, except for a fleet of Algerian military helicopters, which began ferrying seriously injured victims to hospitals in other cities. Finally, 24 hours after the earthquake, a full-fledged disaster force, equipped with bulldozers, cranes and 6,000 tents, reached the El Asnam area.

They found that many inhabitants had been digging with their bare hands in the rubble, trying desperately to reach trapped victims, whose screams echoed through demolished streets. One rescue worker reported that arms and legs had to be amputated, without anesthetics, to free some people from the rubble. Groups of survivors, most of them from the city's outskirts, gathered on roadsides, waiting numbly for instructions.

Tents were quickly set up to house them at four sprawling encampments outside the city. As survivors arrived, many frantically hunted for their families. Wailed one man: "I just had time to grab my wife and run clear as our house collapsed, but our children were trapped inside. I don't know if they are alive or dead." Other people grimly carried their dead to the Muslim cemeteries on hillsides on the outskirts of the city. An old man with a long memory and the look of shock still in his eyes tearfully surveyed the devastation and said: "This is far worse than 1954."

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