By the BBC's James Coomarasamy

At least 750 people are now thought to have died in Algeria's worst floods and mud slides for forty years. With more rain expected, the death toll is likely to rise further.

Thousands of people have been filing through makeshift morgues trying to trace missing relatives.

In the working-class district of Bab El Oued in Algiers, onlookers gathered as the tangled wreckage of a car was pulled from the mud.

But with little chance of finding anyone else alive, they looked on more in shell-shocked fascination than in hope.

750 people died in the worst floods for 40 years

Many of them had watched from the upper floors of their tenement buildings as friends and relatives were washed away by the floods. Days later, they watched as the bodies were recovered.

We met one boy, Mohammad, helping his neighbours salvage their last remaining pots and pans. He had clung to his mother for four hours on Saturday as their flat disintegrated around them.

He showed me the spot where the mother who cooked with them and one of her sons were killed as one of the back walls of the house collapsed. The surviving son and daughter are now orphaned and homeless.

Authorities overwhelmed

Many of those who have lost all their possessions in the floods are staying in nearby schools. At one we visited women and children sipping soup as they sat on mattresses along the sides of classrooms.

All the help they have had has come from private donations, they said, angry that the officials here have done little to help.

"We've had nothing, no one has come here, no one has brought us anything," said one woman.

Bab El Oued residents have had little official help

Much-needed fresh water supplies are being brought to the worst affected areas, but it is clear the authorities here are finding it difficult to cope.

Cruel timing

This disaster has struck at a particularly cruel time, on the eve of the Muslim holy month.

"Ramadan is coming and you know at Ramadan we don't eat for all the days and its very hard to be outside, you have no house," another man said.

This Muslim community's belief in God, he explained, means they don't see the disaster as a man-made catastrophe.

"It's God, it's God, we have no choice. We have to live with it," he said.

As work continues to clear away the debris and thoughts turn to rebuilding this shattered part of Algiers, the people here will need to draw on that stoicism in the cold weeks and months ahead.