Chile Struggles To Recover, Deals With Massive Looting

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Signs Of Life & Looting, In Quake-Hit City


Rescuers in this coastal city found signs of life in the wreckage of a 15-story building Monday as the world offered aid to victims of an earthquake and tsunami that killed more than 700 people. But the city also saw looters roaming the streets, and burning a looted supermarket, even after troops and police arrested dozens for violating a curfew.

Adding to the anguish, all six people aboard a small plane en route to Concepcion died in a crash on Monday. The passengers included university officials who intended to help with housing problems.

The toll of dead rose to 723, with 19 others missing, the National Emergency Office announced, in a magnitude-8.8 quake that President Michelle Bachelet called "an emergency without parallel in Chile's history."

Some coastal towns were almost obliterated — first shaken by the quake, then slammed by a tsunami that carried whole houses inland and crushed others into piles of sticks. Shocked survivors were left without power, water or food.

In the town of Constitucion alone, about 350 people died, state television quoted emergency officials as saying.

In Concepcion, the biggest city near the epicenter, rescuers heard the knock of trapped victims inside a toppled 70-unit apartment building and began to drill through thick walls to reach them, said fire department Commander Juan Carlos Subercaseux.

Only the chop of military helicopters flying overhead broke the silence demanded by rescuers straining to hear signs of life inside the building.

Since the quake early Saturday, firefighters had already pulled 25 survivors and nine bodies from the structure.

Food, Military slow to arrive

Mayor Jacqueline van Rysselberghe told Radio Cooperativa that some food aid was arriving in the city of 200,000 Monday for distribution to the hungry.

Electricity was still out, however, water was scarce and looters re-emerged at dusk despite beefed up security. Dozens of people sacked stores selling food, clothing and drugs, fleeing when police appeared to drive them away. Some struck gas stations, stealing cash from attendants.

As a small military convoy of drove down the main avenue, bystanders applauded and shouted, "Finally! Finally!" Some 10,000 troops have been promised for the area.

Concepcion police chief Eliecer Soler said officers arrested 55 people for violating a nighttime curfew imposed after looters sacked nearly every market in town Sunday. Troops ordered into the city by Bachelet patrolled to enforce security. A few looters re-emerged to rob a market on Monday.

Spanish professor Eduardo Aundez watched with disgust as a soldier patiently waited for looters to rummage through a downtown store, then lobbed two tear gas canisters into the rubble to get them out.

"I feel abandoned" by authorities, he said. "We believe the government didn't take the necessary measures in time, and now supplies of food and water are going to be much more complicated."

Across the Bio Bio River in the city of San Pedro, looters cleared out a shopping mall. A video store was set ablaze, two automatic teller machines were broken open, a bank was robbed and a supermarket emptied, its floor littered with mashed plums, scattered dog food and smashed liquor bottles.

"It was a mob. They looted everything," said police Sgt. Rene Gutierrez, who had his men guarding the now-empty mall. "Now we're only here to protect the building — what's left of the building."

He said police had been slow to reach the looted mall because one bridge over the river was collapsed and the other so damaged they had to move cautiously.

Aid from abroad

The U.N. said Monday that it would rush aid deliveries to Chile after Bachelet appealed for international aid. U.N. humanitarian spokeswoman Elisabeth Byrs said Chile was seeking temporary bridges, field hospitals, satellite phones, electric generators, damage assessment teams, water purification systems, field kitchens and dialysis centers.

"We are prepared to provide assistance," Byrs told The Associated Press in Geneva. "It could be quite fast, given that our experts are on standby and were alerted in the region."

The World Health Organization said it expected the death toll to rise in the coming days as communications improve. For survivors, it said access to health services will be a major challenge and noted that indigenous people living in adobe homes were most at risk from heavily damaged infrastructure.


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