New tremor hits Algeria

Tuesday's aftershock collapsed a 15-storey building

A powerful aftershock has hit northern Algeria, the second since last week's earthquake which left more than 2,000 dead and thousands more injured and homeless.

The BBC's Mohammed Arezki Himeur in Algiers says residents of the capital ran out of their homes in panic.

The authorities say the tremor's epicentre was Zemmouri, where an earlier aftershock hit on Tuesday night. The latest one struck just before 0800 local time (0700GMT).

Wednesday's quake had a magnitude of 5.2, compared to 5.5 on Tuesday and 6.8 for the original earthquake.

The Algerian Red Crescent has estimated that up to 100,000 people are still too afraid to return to their homes after last week's quake, although the Algerian Government puts the figure at closer to 10,000.

It's not easy to stay calm when the earth under your feet and the buildings around you are shaking

Displaced woman

There is no news yet of any casualties from Wednesday's tremor but at least 200 people were reportedly injured on Tuesday night.

A worker for the International Red Crescent in the area, Christopher Black, told the BBC that the psychological damage on the already traumatised population would be immense.

Many missing

The earthquake which struck last Wednesday killed at least 2,218 people and injured more than 9,000.

The death toll could end up much higher, with Algerian newspapers reporting as many as 2,000 people still unaccounted for.

ALGERIAN EARTHQUAKES

22 December 1999: 28 dead and 175 injured in north-west

18 August 1994: 172 dead and 288 injured in western region of Mascara

29 October 1989: 30 dead and 400 injured in Tipaza region

10 October 1980: About 3,000 dead and 8,000 injured and in al-Asnam

9 and 16 September 1954: 1,400 dead and 14,000 injured

"People were having breakfast and then all of a sudden everything shook, the plates, the glasses, the cutlery.

"I heard one person say 'not again'," said a correspondent for Reuters news agency in the largest hotel in the capital Algiers, who felt a sharp shake lasting several seconds.

Seismologists say that such aftershocks are normal.

One woman, waiting in a local park with her husband and three children told our correspondent:

"It's not easy to stay calm when the earth under your feet and the buildings around you are shaking."

This family, along with tens of others, have been living in the park, day and night, since the original earthquake on 21 May.

Collect belongings

Rescuers have lost hopes of saving three people have died after being trapped in a 15-floor building, which collapsed in Tuesday's aftershock in the eastern coastal town Reghaia, reports Reuters news agency.

They had returned to their homes in the building, which had been leaning to one side since the original earthquake, to collect some belongings.

Hundreds of people are still missing from last week

Two people have reportedly been freed from the building.

Following last week's disaster health and aid workers have stepped up relief efforts in the quake zone, fanning out across the region to prevent outbreaks of diseases such as cholera.

Medics said so far there were no signs of diarrhoea epidemics among the population, but there was a risk they would flare up in the makeshift camps where many residents have been forced to live after their houses were destroyed.

The authorities have promised to investigate allegations that shoddy building standards increased the death toll from the earthquake.

"It's the builders who killed people, not the earthquake," said the uncle of eight-year-old Hassiba Yazi, who was rescued from the rubble of an apartment building erected just three years ago.

Many Algerians also accuse the government of not doing enough to help them.