Chilean President Michelle Bachelet called on Chileans today to rally around relief and reconstruction efforts, deflecting criticism that her government was slow to respond to one of the world's most powerful earthquakes in a century.
Four days after the 8.8-magnitude quake killed more than 800 people in central Chile, police and troops have managed to quell looting and violence in the hard-hit city of Concepcion, which was rocked by back-to-back aftershocks today that sent people fleeing to the hills fearing a new tsunami.
With tensions still running high in the disaster area, an emotional Ms Bachelet urged the population to remain calm in the face of Chile's worst natural disaster in 50 years. She also sought to allay concerns of potential food and fuel shortages.
"There is enough food and therefore we must remain calm. There is also enough fuel, there is no risk of shortages," she said in a nationally televised speech.
Hours later, she took her message to the country's radio waves, calling on Chileans to band together to rebuild what has long been one of Latin America's most stable economies.
"Be confident ... Chile is going to stand on its feet again," Ms Bachelet, a popular president who is in her last days in office, said as she broke into tears.
The government today raised the official death toll from the quake and ensuing tsunami along Chile's coastline to 802.
Ms Bachelet said the number is sure to rise further.
An 18-hour curfew remained in place in Concepcion, Chile's second-biggest city, and 14,000 troops patrolled the streets in hard-hit areas to keep order and oversee aid distribution.
Military trucks and helicopters delivered food and water to devastated areas, while rescue crews searched coastal hamlets north of Concepcion for any survivors trapped in the debris.
In Constitucion, one of several coastal villages nearly wiped out by the quake and tsunami, some reports put the number of missing as high as 500. The town, with a population of about 40,000, accounts for almost half of the official death toll.
Ms Bachelet asked Chileans to avoid stockpiling food so supplies could be distributed fairly. But the plea fell on deaf ears in Constitucion, where prices for foodstuffs such as flour and sugar have skyrocketed because of hoarding and looting.
Chilean emergency officials and the military blamed each other for not clearly warning coastal villages of tsunamis, angering survivors who lost relatives and friends in the massive waves that followed the quake.
Ms Bachelet, whose approval rating hit a lofty 83 per cent in February, has faced mounting criticism for declining offers of international aid in the initial hours after the quake.
She acknowledged that rescue efforts were slow to start but defended the government's actions in the days since.
Nasa said its models showed that Saturday's quake was so powerful it shifted the earth's axis by about 8 cm (3 inches) and slightly shortened the length of a day, by just over one millionth of a second.
In the southern province of Nuble, some people were still camping out on high ground and refused to return to their hometowns for fear of aftershocks and tsunamis.
At least two strong aftershocks were felt today in the capital Santiago, which suffered less damage from Saturday's quake.
A sense of normalcy was returning to the city, with flights slowly resuming at the airport after being completely shut down for almost two days after the quake.
Rueters