Shock and grief gave way to anger and despair in Algeria today as the scale of death and destruction wrought by the massive earthquake that struck the heavily populated north of the country began to sink in.
Liberal newspapers, survivors and opposition politicians slammed the government's response to the crisis as woefully inadequate, and placed blame for the heavy death toll - 1,600 and rising inexorably - largely on corruption in the building industry.
"This is the construction of mafiosos," said survivor Ms Karima Bensallah at Bordja el Kiffan, an eastern suburb, where most of her neighbors died in the collapse of a building that was less than two years old. "They ask for billions, but this is what they build."
Few are known to have escaped alive from the apartment block where 35 families lived - easily more than 200 people.
The government has announced that families of victims would receive 70,000 dinars (€7,500) for each family member who died, while angry survivors gave little credence to the offer.
Hundreds of people are officially listed as missing, with little hope of further miraculous rescues on the third day after Wednesday's temblor rocked an eastern swath of the capital Algiers and areas further east.
An 18-month-old baby and 73-year-old man cheated death long enough to be rescued in nearby Bourmedes, as well as a 12-year-old girl in Bordj el Kiffan, among about a dozen people pulled out alive from piles of rubble.
More than 7,200 people have been reported injured, hundreds of whom were made homeless by the quake, which struck at the dinner hour.
Children orphaned by the disaster number at least in the dozens, with 80 receiving treatment by the country's main pediatric surgery, at Belfort Hospital in the east of Algiers.
As Algeria's normal work week began today, rescue and recovery squads backed by international teams continued their round-the-clock efforts to dig out survivors and remove bodies from the devastation.
France, Germany, Britain and Switzerland have provided sniffer dogs in the effort. These countries and several others have joined international agencies in sending emergency food and water, medical equipment and supplies and other aid to the victims.
AFP