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Dead Rise to 707 After Storms as Chirac Prepares Landmark Visit to Algeria
ALGIERS, Nov 16 (News Agencies) - Seven hundred and seven people died in violent weekend storms that thrashed northern Algeria last weekend, authorities said Friday releasing a new official toll, as French president Jaqcues Chirac prepared to make the first visit to Algeria by a French head of state in 12 years.
One hundred sixty eight people are reported missing, 156 of them in the capital, Algiers, where the working class neighborhood of Bab El Oued bore the brunt of gale-force winds and a torrential downpour on Saturday. Scores of victims were washed out to sea.
Rescue workers feared the number of dead could climb to 1,000, and said their work was hampered because many roads were still blocked by storm debris.
Photographs of loved ones lost in the storm were plastered on walls in Bab El Oued in the desperate hope of finding survivors.
But Interior Minister Yazid Zerhouni said Thursday there was no hope left of finding anyone alive.
The newspaper El Watan, citing police, said the number of people missing from the unprecendented floods "was higher than 500."
The minister said Algeria had the means to deal with the crisis, and was being assisted by Morocco, the United Arab Emirates, Tunisia, Libya, Turkey and France.
He also urged 1,500 families listed as homeless to "show patience.... and a bit of organization and understanding."
Efforts to re-house people and distribute aid have reportedly been hindered by "false" applications from people whose homes were left intact.
Bab El Oued residents have blamed city authorities for exacerbating the impact of the storms by having cemented up drains in the 1990s to deprive Islamic groups of an escape route after attacks.
The drains were never unblocked.
Angry youths heckled Algerian President Abdelaziz Bouteflika when he visited Bab El Oued Monday, shouting anti-government slogans, such as "Assassins in power."
Residents have also accused the government of failing to give adequate help to rescue workers.
Volunteers complained they were given no picks or shovels and were forced to dig in the thick mud with stainless steel plates, saucepans or their bare hands.
Meanwhile, the French president's landmark visit is part of a North African tour that will also take in Tunisia and Morocco, his spokeswoman said Friday.
The trip to Algeria - the first by a French president since 1989 - follows a state visit to Paris by Algeria's President Abdelaziz Bouteflika in June 2000 that helped improve relations between Algeria and its former colonial power.
Chirac's December 1 and 2 tour of North Africa is "part of the concerted effort that France is pursuing to address international developments," said Elysee spokesman Catherine Colonna.
"Tunisia, Algeria and Morocco are France's key partners in the Mediterranean," she said, adding that Paris has "close relations" with the three countries in all areas.
Algeria waged an eight-year war for independence from France that has left deep scars in relations on both sides of the Mediterranean.
Late French president Francois Mitterrand visited Algeria three times during his presidency, in late 1981, October 1984 and March 1989.
France is beginning to examine with greater openness the events surrounding its 1954-1962 colonial war in Algeria, including the treatment of 300,000 Algerians who fought for France, the "harkis."
The first national "harki" Remembrance Day was held in France in October.
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