ALGIERS, May 23: Hopes of finding survivors amid the devastation of Algeria’s earthquake faded on Friday as the death toll topped 1,600 despite frantic efforts by teams of foreign rescue workers and sniffer dogs.

A bright moment amid the desolation came when a baby girl was lifted alive from an apartment block which had collapsed into one storey of mangled concrete after the country’s worst tremor in more than two decades struck on Wednesday night.—Reuters