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Algerian Army Helps Flood Victims, Denies Closing Algiers Sewers
ALGIERS, Nov. 18 (IslamOnline & News Agencies) - The Algerian army has joined in the clean-up operation in the center of the capital, Algiers, one week after a two-day long heavy rainstorm created an unprecedented build-up of water and mud that swept into low lying parts of the city, news agencies reported.
The number of bodies recovered so far has exceeded 700, of which 600 were found in one working class district, Bab el-Oued, reported BBC's Online News Service.
"The government is continuing to come in for criticism over its slow reaction but there has been praise for hundreds of local volunteers and foreign rescue teams," it said.
Army trucks rumbled through the Algerian capital for the first time since the political emergency of the mid-1990s, when conflict was at its height in the city.
This time the operation was humanitarian as the army moved in heavy equipment to clear away tons of mud and debris from the streets of Bab el-Oued.
The Algerian media complained about the slow reaction of the state and praised the work carried out by recovery teams sent in by their immediate neighbors - Morocco and Tunisia.
It is also been noted that there is no sign in Algiers of the previously well-organized Islamic Salvation Front sending in its own volunteers to help out.
The Algerian Interior Ministry says 500 families have already been relocated elsewhere and that aid is on its way. But many newspapers are skeptical and showed pictures of food aid from abroad still stacked in airport hangers, said the BBC.
The government says it is being unfairly depicted and is doing all it can.
The discovery Saturday of 15 more bodies in the working class neighborhood of Bab El Oued raised the death toll from the violent storms to 722.
"We must clear the streets to allow traffic and to be able to reach the basements and ground floors that haven't been searched yet," said Commander Debache of the civil guard. Officials warned that the death toll might continue to rise.
"Once the basements are searched and all the bodies are cleared out," he added, "we'll be able to let the water, electricity, gas, and telephone people do their work and, little by little, re-establish a normal life in this neighborhood. We'll need a lot of time before we get back to normal."
Interior Minister Yazid Zerhouni said the cost of the damage wreaked by the storms was estimated at $250 million.
Bab El Oued bore the brunt of the storms' wrath, with torrents of mud submerging the district that sits at the foot of hills - sweeping people, market stalls, vehicles and homes out to sea.
President Abdelaziz Bouteflika visited the site on last Monday. Algeria's cabinet has allocated 1,500 lodgings to those who lost their homes in the storms and financial aid to those needing to carry out emergency repairs.
Yet, the government is already coming under fire for a four-year-old decision to close the sewers in an attempt to shut down a network of Islamic activists, who used them as hiding places.
The blocked sewers have been blamed for aggravating damage caused by the storms.
They were sealed up in 1997, after a two-week long operation uncovered electrical materials, medicine, and bombs used by teams loyal to the Islamic Salvation Front (FIS) leader, Athmane Kkelifi, also known as Flicha.
That information was only made public two days after the deadly storms swept through the capital, inciting much controversy, with Algeria's
Le Soir daily newspaper entitling an article, "The Deadly Solution."
"After several fruitless searches, the decision was taken to block the principle routes with concrete, "
Le Soir reported. "The scale of the damage, never before equaled in Bab El Oued, leads us to the theory that stupidity can be human."
The district's inhabitants confirmed the information, readily showing journalists where the blocked sewer entries lie. The government, however, has vehemently and formally denied any closure of Bab El Oued's sewer system.
"It's false," military chief General Cherif Fodhil said. "Not only do I deny it, but I am telling you that you're taking us for monsters. I have been a part of the anti-terrorist struggle for years. To do such a thing is unthinkable and would be criminal," he said.
A sewer employee told AFP, however, that the government did in fact order the system to be shut down.
As far as the government is concerned, the damage that struck Bab El Oued was nothing but a "natural disaster," he said.
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