Rescuers have been working to move the rubble in the search for survivors

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Two big earthquakes have struck the northern Algerian town of El Asnam.

An official report said up to 20,000 had died and many tens of thousands have been injured or are missing.

The main hospital, a big department store, the central mosque, a girls' school and two housing complexes have been destroyed.

In 1954, an earthquake killed 1,657 people in El Asnam, which was then called Orleansville.

The first quake hit just before 1330 local time. It measured 7.3 points on the Richter scale - the biggest ever recorded for that part of Algeria.

Three hours later there was a second quake registering 6.3 points.

Telephone lines between El Asnam and the capital, Algiers, have been cut.

The damage to the local hospital is so bad that casualties are being sent more than 100 miles (160km) to Algiers and the northwestern port of Oran for treatment.

In the town centre where the damage is worst, whole blocks of flats have been reduced to heaps of rubble.

A central four-storey hotel collapsed under the weight of its roof, demolishing all 1,509 rooms beneath and burying many of the occupants.

A lot of buildings collapsed, but their flat roofs made of reinforced concrete remained intact, crashing down on top of the crumpled walls and creating tomb-like spaces beneath.

Within hours of the earthquake, many giant earth-moving machines were on the scene helping remove the rubble that buried so many people.

Most of the bodies have been taken to the grounds of the local hospital for identification.

The rescuers are trying to recover the bodies as quickly as possible because of the risk of a typhoid epidemic.

A mass vaccination programme is already planned for later in the week while demolition teams are regularly disinfected to try to limit the likelihood of the disease occurring.

The town's population has tripled since the last quake in 1954, with the result that although this was a less powerful upheaval, it caused much more concentrated damage.

The town centre was home to 150,000 people and another 50,000 lived in the surrounding villages, where hardly a building has been left standing.

Doctors and medical staff have been working without a break since the quake struck but in the outlying areas many more doctors and medicines are needed. 

Many tourists are still convinced something sinister lurks in the loch

Searchers on Operation Deepscan spent a week on the loch using 3-million worth of equipment to scan the lake.

The flotilla of 24 boats did pick up three sonar "contacts" shown on paper as crescent shaped marks.

They indicated something big in the waters below Urquhart castle but this could have been a seal or a group of salmon.

Project leader Adrian Shine, who has been looking for "Nessie" for many years, told the BBC: "I think if we were to get a fish on the scale that the contacts would suggest then I don't think anyone would be too dissatisfied and all those eye-witnesses would get their vindication."

The legend of the monster dates back to the 6th century but it was not until the 1930s that the myth really took off.

In 1933, Mr and Mrs George Spicer told newspapers they saw a monster, measuring 40 to 50 ft (12 to 15 m) long, crossing the road near the loch.

"Although I accelerated quickly towards it," he said, "it had disappeared into the loch by the time I reached the spot.

"There was no sign of it in the water. I am a temperate man, but I am willing to take any oath that we saw this Loch Ness beast. I am certain that this creature was of a prehistoric species."

There have been numerous sightings since then - and numerous hoaxes.

In the 1970s, a photograph taken by Dr Robert Rhines attracted worldwide attention. It seemed to show a flipper or fin of the monster.

The creature in the photo was even given a scientific name - Nessiteras rhombopteryx by the famous naturalist Sir Peter Scott.

Published in the top journal Nature, the name meant "Ness wonder with a diamond shaped fin" however, it didn't take long for some sceptical minds to point out that the name was also an anagram - "Monster hoax by Sir Peter S".

It was later revealed that the image had been computer enhanced.

typhoid: serious infection marked by intestinal inflammation and ulceration（傷寒）

flotilla: a fleet of small craft（小型船隊）

anagram: a word or phrase spelled by rearranging the letters of another word or phrase（由顛倒字母順序而構成的字）