Stunned and weeping families were given hope Thursday about 17 hours after the quake hit the capital Algiers and other parts of northern Algeria. A man was pulled alive from beneath a flattened four-story apartment block in the city of Boumerdes.

Rescuers, many working with bare hands while others used bulldozers and cranes, said hundreds could still be under debris from the quake that struck the capital and towns to the east along a populous Mediterranean coastal strip Wednesday night.

President Abdelaziz Bouteflika, who toured quake-hit areas and canceled trips to France and Nigeria later this month, declared three days of national mourning from Friday.

The quake, 6.7 on the Richter scale, sent many terrified people running into the streets. Others were killed when their homes collapsed in the quake, Algeria's worst in more than 20 years and felt as far away as Spain.

Some Algerians angrily accused builders of erecting unsafe structures in a known quake-prone region.

The worst devastation was in the city of Reghaia, just east of Algiers, where a 10-storey block of 78 apartments collapsed. About 250 bodies had been pulled out so far, rescuers said.

Television footage from a helicopter flying over quake-hit areas showed some buildings standing fully or largely intact amid others completely flattened.

While rescue efforts went on round the clock, food and water were running low for the homeless and those staying in the open for fear of more tremors.

Some had blankets and tents provided by the authorities, but others had nothing. Electricity, gas and water supplies and phone lines had been severed in some of the worst-hit areas.

Some people were getting increasingly worried about lack of water, food and shelter.

"We're still waiting for authorities to provide us with milk for babies. People are also receiving too few tents," said Djamel, 45.

Prime Minister Ahmed Ouyahia said: "I can assure you that all the persons who have been made homeless will get decent new housing very soon."

Rescue services urged people not to go back to their homes unless they were safe and said they should keep radios turned on for further announcements.

Officials said security forces were on alert to stop looting in a country riven by a decade of violence by Islamist rebels. The strife has cost more than 100,000 lives and burdened an economy potentially wealthy from natural gas and oil exports.

Hospitals in many towns found it almost impossible to cope. In some areas, the injured had to be treated in the open air. State television showed dozens of bodies in lines under sheets and blankets.

Nearly 24 hours after the quake struck, Algerian state radio quoted Interior Minister Noureddine Yazid Zerhouni as saying the death toll stood at 1,092 and 6,782 people had been injured. Zerhouni said it was still a preliminary figure.

Former colonial ruler France, Germany, Spain, Britain and neighboring Morocco were among countries to dispatch search and medical teams as Algeria appealed to its citizens for blood donors and stepped up efforts to help the homeless.

In Algiers, some 60 buildings were destroyed. Most of Algeria's 32 million people live in the north, away from the Sahara desert. Algiers is home to at least 2.6 million.

In Rouiba, a relatively prosperous city some 30 km (20 miles) from the eastern edge of Algiers, one building after another was reduced to rubble.

Bulouenes Sidiali, a resident of one block that collapsed to its foundations, said the building was only six months old.

"My friend went crazy this morning when he found his wife dead," Sidiali said. "The government must bring the owners of this firm to justice. They are criminals."

In Boumerdes, media reports said some people had jumped from windows when the quake struck.

The US Geological Survey said the quake's epicenter had been 70 km (45 miles) east of Algiers. It said the quake was the biggest to hit Algeria since 1980, when one measuring 7.7 on the Richter scale demolished more than 70 percent of the city of El Asnam, west of Algiers. It was subsequently rebuilt as Chlef.

(China Daily May 23, 2003)