International teams were drafted in to hunt for earthquake survivors

Neil Mayne, 41, from Hinckley, was one of four Leicestershire firefighters who flew to Algeria following the earthquake last Wednesday.

They were among rescuers who searched through the ruined buildings for buried victims.

The four men and two dogs flew out to the capital Algiers on Thursday and returned on Monday.

They were part of a team of nearly 100 rescuers from Britain which included crews from Lincolnshire, Grampian, Greater Manchester and Lancashire fire and rescue services.

Their first job when they arrived in Algeria was to find a seven-year-old girl called Helena who was believed to be trapped under the ruins of a three-storey house.

Their efforts were unsuccessful and she did not survive, Mr Mayne said.

An 11-year-old girl named Sabina was later heard shouting from the rubble of a five-storey block of flats and her father and brother watched as firefighters tried to rescue her, however she too died.

Mr Mayne said: "It is distressing to see people in need ... to see it for the first time is quite shocking.

"We likened it to the film Black Hawk Down."

The film focuses on an American UN peacekeeping mission in 1993 to war-ravaged Somalia which resulted in a fierce battle that left many American soldiers dead.

The firefighter said: "There were a number of quite severe after shocks that we were in while we were actually working.

"The locals were in sheer panic and it was very, very distressing for those people.

"Eleven families were lost when one building collapsed and Sabina was believed to be the only one still alive, but we couldn't rescue her."

The two Border collies who were used in the rescue efforts, Max and Gemma, who live with the families of two of the firefighters will be forced to remain in quarantine until Boxing Day.