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BOUDOUAOU, Algeria, Monday (Reuters) Algeria's earthquake death toll topped 2,100 as rescuers gave up hope of saving a little girl and signalled a search for survivors was virtually over by sending bulldozers to clear debris.

Encouraged by local residents who said they heard the girl's voice, a team of Italian rescue workers had chipped and drilled gingerly at rubble from a collapsed four-storey building in the coastal town of Boudouaou, east of the capital Algiers.

But as dusk fell amid the swirling dust, they resigned themselves to the inevitable on the girl, an 11-year-old called Sabrina.

They called for heavy lifting equipment to switch from rescue to recovery as Algeria's Mediterranean coastal area reeled under the impact of Wednesday's quake, 6.7 on the Richter scale.

"It's just not possible to find people alive. Only the dead. It's too late," said Levente Szabo, a weary trauma surgeon from Poland as he took a break in the nearby town of Boumerdes.

Rescue teams and sniffer dogs stood aside in the devastated town, one of the worst hit, as fork trucks and cranes ripped apart what was left of flattened buildings to uncover blackened and bloated bodies. A smell of disinfectant hung in the air.

But many rescue teams from around the world refused to give up all hope of find any more survivors from the quake. Veterans of quakes from Turkey to India, they told stories of people rescued against all odds after many days.

On Sunday night, authorities put the death toll at 2,162 and said 8,965 were injured. But with well over 1,000 people missing, the final count from Algeria's most severe quake in more than two decades looked set to head towards 3,000.

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