ALGERIA: Twelve Seconds

The rich, alluvial topsoil of Algeria’s Cheliff River valley has long provided France with one of her richest colonial gardens, but the bedrock that lies under the valley’s rich farms is full of treachery. One night last week it was torn and wrenched with such mighty subterranean convulsions that in just twelve seconds much of the valley was a waste of flood water, its principal town Orleansville a desolation of rubble and wreckage.

Founded in 1843 by France’s colonial conqueror, Marechal Thomas-Robert Bugeaud de La Piconnerie, Orleansville was a dusty, bustling trade center of 32,500, built on the site of an ancient Roman city. Orleansville’s newest building, not completed by last week, was a nine-story apartment house. At 1 :07 on the morning the earthquake struck, 25 construction workers were sleeping peacefully on the unfinished third floor of the new building. Less than a minute later, as the whole town awoke to a nightmare, building and workers together collapsed in a heap like a house of cards. Near by, a cathedral toppled over, its steeple bell bouncing into rubble. Army barracks, a sports stadium, police headquarters, a hospital, a prison, and the post office fell like split kindling. The palatial Hotel Baudouin swayed and plunged, then foundered, turning its desk register into a death toll.

Out in the country, Shepherd Maamar Bentouta was standing watch over his sheep. “Suddenly,” he said, “I saw the earth opening up all around me and my sheep disappearing into enormous crevices.” Almost caught in a crevice himself, the shepherd crawled home with a broken rib only to find his wife and children crushed in the ruins of their cottage.

Altogether, more than 1,000 people were killed that night.