THE DEATH toll from Saturday’s devastating earthquake in Chile rose to more than 700 last night as rescue workers fanned out across a 600km-long stretch of the country searching for bodies and survivors.
President Michelle Bachelet directed rescue operations and toured heavily hit areas in a race to provide basic supplies to entire cities that remained without water, electricity or basic communications. She said two million people were affected by the 8.8-magnitude quake, adding that it would take several days to evaluate the “enormous quantity of damage”.
Last night, after a six-hour emergency meeting with officials, she raised the known death toll dramatically from 300 to 708. “We face a catastrophe of such unthinkable magnitude that it will require a giant effort” for Chile to recover, she told a news conference.
US secretary of state Hillary Clinton will visit Chile on a previously scheduled trip, unrelated to the earthquake, this week.
As aftershocks measuring up to 7.5 continued to batter the country, rescue workers yesterday arrived at distant coastal cities to find entire fishing villages washed away. There were reports last night that as many as 350 people had died in one coastal town, Constitución, which was hit first by the earthquake and then by a tsunami.
The Department of Foreign Affairs said last night it had received more than 100 calls from concerned friends and relatives of Irish people living in Chile. However, a spokesman said there had been no Irish casualties reported yet, but communications were sporadic.
The death toll was expected to rise dramatically across the country given the number of missing people.
Identification of the dead was hampered because most victims were sleeping at the time of the earthquake and were not carrying any personal documents.
Last night, more than 100 people remained trapped inside a toppled 14-storey building in Concepción, Chile’s second largest city, 63km northwest of the epicentre. The new building was only half-occupied but an estimated 20 bodies were removed and firefighters crawled through the wreckage searching for signs of life last night.
As food, water and petrol become scarce, massive looting erupted in Concepción. Police initially attempted to stop the looters using tear-gas.
A pitched battle erupted inside the Lider supermarket and ended only when police and supermarket officials allowed local residents to form long lines and remove essential items from the supermarket free of charge.
Food warehouses were also looted and Jacqueline van Rysselberghe, the mayor of Concepción, warned of a “very, very conflictive” night ahead. “We are going to have social explosion if aid is not received today.”
The Chilean air force sent a 747 filled with police officers to the region in an attempt to regain control. Military roadblocks were set up outside some cities in an attempt to keep outsiders from joining the looting.
An estimated 500,000 Chilean residential buildings were severely damaged in the quake, leaving nearly one in eight residents without a home.
The cost of the damage was estimated to be $25-$30 billion, according to Eqecat, a firm based in Oakland, California, that specialises in disaster management software. Eqecat experts said Chile’s long history of major earthquakes and solid construction were instrumental in preventing far more deaths, with building codes including earthquake-resistant standards in all new construction.
President-elect Sebastián Piñera, who is to take office in less than two weeks, has worked closely with the outgoing Bachelet administration to organise long-term relief.
On Saturday, Mr Piñera asked key disaster relief and government officials to stay in office during the early part of his administration.
Santiago international airport was heavily damaged and remained closed as officials sought to build temporary terminals to handle passengers. With many major bridges destroyed and entire sections of Route 5, the main north-south highway, twisted and torn, delivery of relief aid to many areas was made difficult, and in some cases impossible.
Fears of a tsunami roaring across the Pacific Ocean were quelled yesterday when waves that hit Japan were minimal. – ( Guardianservice)