Algeria/ 31 dead, 1000 houses destroyed, dozens still reported missing in Ghardaia’s heavy floods

The death toll in flash floods in Algeria’s southern city of Ghardaia climbed to 31 on Friday, as hundreds of aid workers battled to relieve hundreds of homeless and troops of the national people’s Army were deployed to help in the supervision of the ongoing rescue efforts.             Fifty other people were injured and about 1 000 were homeless around Ghardaia, a United       Nations World Heritage site at the entrance to the Algerian Sahara, 600km south of Algiers in the M’Zab Valley.

• Hundreds of civilian volunteers, Red Crescent officials and Muslim scouts worked round-the-clock to help those living rough. The water was eight metres high in some parts of the town of Ghardaia.
• Basic aid and foodstuffs were funnelled from nearby towns in scores of trucks.
• 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 widespread flooding.

  The interior ministry sent tents, generators and 400 tonnes of first aid supplies to the affected region. Army helicopters were used in the rescue operations.

• The government previously said 28 people had been killed in the floods, which have damaged 600 homes, many of them in oasis areas notably in the local district of Ghaba.

  A resident reached by telephone by reporters suggested the toll could be higher in the region following the first heavy rainfalls 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 bursts its banks, sweeping away everything in its path.

  Authorities said that the surging river waters reached a flow of 900 cubic metres per second.