Chile quake toll reaches 711, 90 aftershocks (Second Lead)

SANTIAGO - The streets were deserted Sunday night in Concepcion, Chile’s second largest city, amidst a curfew imposed to clamp down on looting a day after the South American nation was rocked by an 8.8-magnitude earthquake that has claimed at least 711 lives.

An estimated 90 aftershocks continued to rattle the region since the early Saturday temblor, according to the US Geological Survey. The aftershocks included a 6.9 magnitude quake off the coast.

However, Chile appears to have been spared a higher death toll thanks to strict building laws put into effect after past earthquakes.

The government of President Michelle Bachelet imposed a 30-day state of emergency and sent 10,000 soldiers into the worst-hit regions of Maule and Biobio. The military will also oversee the distribution of food, blankets and medication to hundreds of thousands of people.

“We are searching for an unknown number of missing,” said Carmen Fernandez, who heads the centre for emergency preparedness.

In Concepcion, 500 km south of the capital Santiago, chaotic looting earlier Sunday gave way to empty streets as the military enforced the 9 p.m. to 6 a.m. curfew.

Only a few people ventured out, under the risk of arrest. But the free distribution of food triggered pushing and shoving and security units had to use tear gas to control the crowds.

Search teams scoured the rubble of collapsed buildings for survivors Sunday.

“We are standing before a catastrophe of such magnitude that all sectors of society need to pull together, to get through this,” Bachelet said.

For the first time, Bachelet asked for help from abroad after earlier saying Chile could take care of itself. She asked for support for hospitals, rescue efforts, communications infrastructure, structural engineers and de-salinisation plants for water.

The European Union, the US, the United Nations and several neighbouring countries have offered help.

Authorities estimated there was damage to 2 million homes.

Widespread damage to roads and port installations hampered relief efforts. In many places there was no electricity, gas or water. The telephone network functioned only intermittently.

Santiago’s international airport reopened for limited service by schedule passenger airliners, including a flight from LAN out of Peru, Chilean television reported. The terminal buildings were damaged, but officials said the runways were unscathed.

In Concepcion, a city of more than 600,000, rescue teams searched feverishly for residents trapped in a damaged apartment block.

Thirty people were pulled alive from a 14-storey building, which broke into two halves, but an unknown number remained inside. Most were asleep when the quake hit at 3.34 a.m. (1204 IST) Saturday.

While the Pacific basin was spared a major tsunami, there was major tsunami damage in Chile. In the coastal city of Talcahuano, where the surge reached nearly 5 metres from peak to trough, a bizarre exchange took place: While even larger boats landed in the city centre, entire homes floated out to sea.

“The water swept aside everything that got in its way,” said a resident of the small town of Boyecura.

A wall of water swept across the Chilean island of Robinson Crusoe, 670 km off the coast, destroying many buildings and sweeping five people out to sea. Eleven others were missing.

The Chilean Navy admitted it failed to give adequate tsunami warning to Robinson Crusoe, which lies in the Chilean archipelago of Juan Fernandez.