Tornado Alley (PROG)

[fuagf]

As Haiti, it's terrible .. can you connect to the Santiago Times?
http://www.google.com.au/search?q=chili+english+newpapers&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8&aq=t&client=firefox-a&rlz=1R1RNFA_en___AU344

Quake death toll rises as rescuers dig though rubble amid more aftershocks


Cars lie overturned after the highway they were travelling on was destroyed in an earthquake in
Santiago February 27, 2010. A powerful earthquake that struck Chile on Saturday killed at least
82 people across the country, the interior minister told reporters. REUTERS/Marco Fredes

Hannah Strange

The death toll in Chile’s earthquake rose to more than 700 last night as rescue workers battled to find survivors trapped in the wreckage and powerful aftershocks battered the country. President Bachelet said that 708 people were known to have died in “a catastrophe of such unthinkable magnitude that it will require a giant effort for Chile to recover”.

She said that the Army would be brought in to aid the police against looters and would take control of Chile’s second city, Concepción.

Tens of thousands of Chileans were camped in tents and makeshift shelters, fearing that aftershocks would bring down more buildings after the 8.8-magnitude earthquake on Saturday destroyed airports, highways and buildings, and sent a tsunami across the Pacific.

About 400 deaths were in the seaside resort of Constitución, which was struck by the tsunami as well as the earthquake, according to the first reports to emerge from the coastal towns.
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Concepción, which was 70 miles (110 kilometres) from the epicentre, was strewn with overturned cars, concrete blocks and lamp-posts, while the Bio Bio bridge collapsed. The city of 670,000 became the scene of the country’s biggest rescue operation. Last night rescue workers were picking through the debris of a collapsed 15-storey apartment building in the hope of finding survivors among more than 60 people trapped inside.

Rescue operations were complicated by the aftershocks, with more than 90 registered across
the country in the 24 hours after the earthquake. The strongest reached 6.9 on the Richter scale.

Carmen Fernández, the director of the Interior Ministry’s National Emergency Office,
warned residents to brace themselves, saying that the shocks could last “even months”.

The agency said that the earthquake had an impact from the desert region of Antofagasta, in the far north, to the Lakes region at the country’s southern tip. Few parts were untouched, with an estimated 2 million people affected and 1.5 million homes and buildings destroyed or badly damaged.

The death toll was likely to rise as rescue operations progressed, officials said. Power supplies remained widely disrupted.

In Concepción thousands of people spent Saturday and Sunday nights sleeping in temporary shelters made from bed sheets or cardboard boxes. Residents were still without water, electricity or phone lines, while fuel supplies were dwindling rapidly.

Police fought with looters who were raiding supermarkets for food. “People have gone days without eating,” one looter, Orlando Salazar, said. “The only option is to come here and get stuff for ourselves.” A bank was robbed in the city and electronics stores were emptied of plasma televisions and washing machines. Television images showed police pushing looters to the floor, while water cannons and teargas were deployed. A curfew was imposed in Concepción and Maule.

In the nearby city of Chillán more than 200 inmates escaped after the earthquake brought down a wall of their prison.

President Bachelet — who has only ten days left in office — said that she found it difficult to spell out the magnitude of the disaster, which she said would take several days to assess. “The power of Nature has again struck our country,” she said, declaring six of Chile’s 15 regions “catastrophe zones”.

The capital, Santiago, about 200 miles northwest of the epicentre, was plunged into near darkness as power lines were snapped and roofs came down. Santiago airport and the city subway remained closed yesterday and communications had failed, leaving residents struggling to locate friends and relatives.

Ninety per cent of buildings were destroyed in the 18th-century town of Curicó, 122 miles south of Santiago,
according to a local radio station which set up a generator-powered newsroom in the main square.

The earthquake was felt as far away as São Paolo in Brazil, 1,800 miles to the northeast.
Experts said that it was hundreds of times more powerful than that which hit Haiti in January.

Chile is one of Latin America’s wealthiest nations and is well prepared for earthquakes, with modern buildings designed to withstand the regular seismic activity in the region. In May 1960 Chile was devastated by the worst earthquake on record, which reached a magnitude of 9.5 and killed up to 6,000 people. It triggered a tsunami that reached as far as New Zealand.

The disaster raises a daunting challenge for the incoming President, Sebastián Piñera, the billionaire businessman who takes office on March 11. He swept to victory on a promise to revive the Chilean economy, but that task has become significantly greater with the damage suffered by the industrial and agricultural sectors.

Offers of aid poured in from the international community. Hillary Clinton, the
US Secretary of State, is to visit on Monday as part of a scheduled regional tour.

Britain, one of Chile’s biggest trade partners, said that it was ready to help. Gordon Brown said: “We will do whatever we can.”
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/us_and_americas/article7044354.ece