Rescuers edged their way toward residents trapped in a toppled apartment block early yesterday and survivors huddled around bonfires in the rubble of their homes as the death toll in Chile continued to rise after one of the strongest earthquakes in history.
Authorities put the official death toll from Saturday’s 8.8-magnitude quake at 214, but said they believed the number would grow. They said 1.5 million Chileans were affected and 500,000 homes severely damaged by the mammoth temblor.
Chilean President Michelle Bachelet, who leaves office on March 11, declared a “state of catastrophe” in central Chile.
“It was a catastrophe of devastating consequences,” she said.
The earthquake has raised a daunting first challenge for billionaire Sebastian Pinera, who was elected president in January in a shift to the political right and who takes office in two weeks.
“We’re preparing ourselves for an additional task, a task that wasn’t part of our governing plan: assuming responsibility for rebuilding our country,” he told reporters on Saturday. “It’s going to be a very big task and we’re going to need resources.”
Some economists predicted a deep impact on Chile’s economy after the quake damaged its industrial and agricultural sectors in the worst-hit regions, possibly putting pressure on its currency.
Police said more than 100 people died in Concepcion, the largest city near the epicenter with more than 200,000 people. The university was among the buildings that caught fire around the city as gas and power lines snapped. Many streets were littered with rubble from edifices, inmates escaped from a nearby prison and police warned that criminals had been looting stores.
A newly opened 11-story building toppled backward, trapping an estimated 60 people inside apartments where the floors suddenly became vertical and the contents of every room slammed down onto rear walls.
A full 24 hours later, only 16 people had been pulled out alive, and six bodies had been recovered.
Rescuers heard a woman call out at 11pm on Saturday from what seemed like the 6th floor, but hours later they were making slow progress in reaching her.
The quake tore apart houses, bridges and highways, and Chileans near the epicenter were thrown from their beds by the force of the mega-quake, which was felt as far away as Sao Paulo, Brazil — 2,900km to the east.
The full extent of damage remained unclear as dozens of aftershocks — one nearly as powerful as Haiti’s devastating Jan. 12 earthquake — shuddered across the disaster-prone Andean nation.
As night fell on Saturday, about a dozen men and children sat around a bonfire in the remains of their homes in Curico, a town 196km south of the capital, Santiago.
“We were sleeping when we felt the quake, very strongly. I got up and went out the door. When I looked back my bed was covered in rubble,” survivor Claudio Palma said.
In Talca, just 105km from the epicenter, people sleeping in bed suddenly felt like they were flying through airplane turbulence as their belongings cascaded down around them when the quake hit at 3:34am.
A journalist emerging into the darkened street scattered with downed power lines saw a man, some of his own bones apparently broken, weeping and caressing the hand of a woman who had died in a cafe. Two other victims lay dead a few meters away.
In the capital Santiago, 325km to the northeast of the epicenter, the national Fine Arts Museum was badly damaged and an apartment building’s two-story parking lot pancaked, smashing about 50 cars.
Santiago’s airport was closed and its subway shut down. Chile’s main seaport, in Valparaiso, was ordered closed while damage was assessed.
TAIWANESE
In Taiwan, Ministry of Foreign Affairs Spokesman Henry Chen (陳銘政) said the ministry had not been able to reach Taiwanese compatriots in Concepcion because the communication and transportation systems in the area remained cut off.
Chen said the nation’s representative office in Chile had considered sending personnel to check on Taiwanese compatriots in the city, but could not do so until the Chilean government restores local communication and transportation systems.
The ministry had yet to specify the number of Taiwanese compatriots currently there, but it would continue to try to confirm their safety, Chen said.
Anyone who would like to contact the representative office’s emergency task force may call 002-56-99-0201692 for section director Huang Nien-tsu (黃念祖) or 002-56-99-3312706 for secretary Chang Tung-ying (張東盈), the ministry said.
Chen said Taiwan had expressed its condolences to Chile and offered help right after the earthquake hit, but the Chilean government said it did not need foreign aid at the moment.
Taiwanese rescue teams would remain on stand-by in case Chile requests help, Chen said.
Additional reporting by Flora Wang
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