BASIC FOOD aid has begun to arrive in Chile’s second city Concepción, which was devastated by Saturday’s earthquake, as pledges of foreign aid poured in.
US secretary of state Hillary Clinton arrived in the Chilean capital, Santiago, yesterday where she met President Michelle Bachelet and president-elect Sebastian Piñera, who takes office this month. She had with her 25 satellite phones and promised water purification units, a field hospital with surgical capacity and portable bridges.
Mrs Clinton said: “We are ready to respond to requests for specific supplies needed to respond to the earthquake. We will help Chile in any way that the government of Chile needs.
“We will be there when others leave,” she added, saying the US was dedicated to “long-term partnership and friendship”.
The secretary of state assured Mr Piñera of “assistance in reconstruction”, noting that the US and Chile enjoyed “a very close bilateral relationship”.
The death toll from the earthquake has risen to 763, an official at the country’s emergency office said yesterday. Ms Bachelet estimated that the cost of damage stood at $3 billion with two million people affected and half a million homes destroyed.
She said, however, that as Chile was “a net creditor” it should “receive good credit from the World Bank” if needed.
The disaster would demand of Chile “a lot of time and a lot of money”.
Offers of help have come from other countries including the EU ($4 million), Japan ($3 million) and China ($1 million). Peruvian president Alan García arrived in Santiago yesterday bringing three tonnes of aid material.
Meanwhile, in Concepción, the first truckloads of basic food supplies arrived and were distributed door to door yesterday afternoon.
However, mayor of Concepción Jacqueline Van Rysselberghe criticised both the quantities supplied and their slow delivery.
Chilean national television reported that the hold-ups at the outskirts of the city were caused by the need for military to provide convoy protection to avert looter attacks.
The night-time curfew was further extended last night from 6pm. Some 85 people in the province of Concepción were detained the previous night for breach of the curfew and attempted thefts were reported. However, the widespread looting seen in previous days has ended.
Some 7,000 military personnel are now patrolling the areas worst affected in the Bio-Bio and Maule regions since a state of catastrophe was declared on Sunday.
Aftershocks measuring between 4.5 and 6.0 on the Richter scale were felt yesterday morning, as thousands of people took refuge on the streets.
Groups of residents have armed themselves with sticks and in some cases rifles and revolvers for fear of robbery and looting. La Tercera newspaper quoted Ivan Silva, a resident from the Huertos Familiares area of Concepción, as saying that his neighbourhood had armed itself and would “shoot to kill”. A group of unknown people, he said, “looted a supermarket and houses and threatened us saying ‘we’ll get you tomorrow’.
“The instruction among us is to shoot on sight. We have sharpshooters on the roofs,” he added.
A 15-strong Panamanian rescue team has arrived in Concepción to help search a collapsed 15-floor building where up to 11 people are suspected to be trapped alive.
Water supplies have been partially restored to the city but it still remains without power.
In a separate incident, six people including the pilot aboard a Piper PA-31, perished when their aircraft en route to Concepción crashed north of the city on Monday afternoon. The group consisted of five members connected to the San Sebastian University who flew from Santiago to inspect the damage to the campus in Concepción. Their aircraft descended in a wooded area near Tome, north of Concepción.