More frozen bodies were recovered from an area of the Chilean Andes Saturday, bringing to 21 the number of confirmed dead after 45 young conscripts were lost in a blizzard in the Chilean army's worst peacetime disaster.
The commander in chief of the Chilean army vowed to continue the search "until the last one of them is with us," but he has admitted that those still missing since the blizzard struck Wednesday are probably dead.
"The bodies were found in the same condition as the others, perfectly identifiable," General Juan Emilio Cheyre said, announcing the latest recoveries at a military base in the town of Los Angeles, near where the tragedy occurred.
PHOTO: AP
Wrenching scenes of relatives receiving the bodies of their loved ones contrasted with the jubilation of families reunited with 112 soldiers who returned to Los Angeles on Saturday. They survived by crowding into a mountain shelter when the blizzard struck, military sources said.
Search teams, at times hindered by new storms, have combed the area since then as the nation reeled and President Ricardo Lagos announced three days of national mourning.
The soldiers went missing on Wednesday when they were caught in a sudden blizzard while on a march in the high Andes near Antuco, not far from Los Angeles, some 500km south of Santiago.
Lagos flew into the area Saturday to attend a religious service for the lost soldiers and personally express condolences to relatives of the victims, most of whom were conscripts doing mandatory military service who got caught in a snowstorm "whiteout."
Standing before the coffins containing the recovered soldiers' bodies, Lagos said: "Today we bid farewell to these soldiers of the Chilean Army as heroes of peace."
Speaking to the families of soldiers, Lagos gave his and his wife Luisa Duran's condolences, speaking "not as authorities but as parents ... who know how hard it is to lose a child."
"We would like to be able to hold you in a strong embrace, the embrace of the millions of Chileans whose thoughts have been with each and every one of you these past few days," he said, barely able to contain his emotion.
Earlier, in his annual address to lawmakers, made at Valparaiso before he headed south to the area of the tragedy, an emotional Lagos said "our souls and our hearts are in Antuco."
"I think that the tragedy that has befallen us must help us, as have other tragic times in our history, to overcome them," said Lagos, who called for "building a better Chile."
As Lagos spoke in Valparaiso, students took to the streets clashing with police there amid a demonstration against a new law that gives students who attend private universities access to the state scholarship system.
At least 75 students were arrested in the incident which was not related to the mountain tragedy.
Cheyre told reporters at a briefing Friday that the snow training "never should have been carried out."
"There is a responsibility on the part of the command here, a responsibility for having done a march that never should have been done," Cheyre acknowledged.
OPTIMISTIC: A Philippine Air Force spokeswoman said the military believed the crew were safe and were hopeful that they and the jet would be recovered A Philippine Air Force FA-50 jet and its two-person crew are missing after flying in support of ground forces fighting communist rebels in the southern Mindanao region, a military official said yesterday. Philippine Air Force spokeswoman Colonel Consuelo Castillo said the jet was flying “over land” on the way to its target area when it went missing during a “tactical night operation in support of our ground troops.” While she declined to provide mission specifics, Philippine Army spokesman Colonel Louie Dema-ala confirmed that the missing FA-50 was part of a squadron sent “to provide air support” to troops fighting communist rebels in
PROBE: Last week, Romanian prosecutors launched a criminal investigation against presidential candidate Calin Georgescu accusing him of supporting fascist groups Tens of thousands of protesters gathered in Romania’s capital on Saturday in the latest anti-government demonstration by far-right groups after a top court canceled a presidential election in the EU country last year. Protesters converged in front of the government building in Bucharest, waving Romania’s tricolor flags and chanting slogans such as “down with the government” and “thieves.” Many expressed support for Calin Georgescu, who emerged as the frontrunner in December’s canceled election, and demanded they be resumed from the second round. George Simion, the leader of the far-right Alliance for the Unity of Romanians (AUR), which organized the protest,
ECONOMIC DISTORTION? The US commerce secretary’s remarks echoed Elon Musk’s arguments that spending by the government does not create value for the economy US Secretary of Commerce Howard Lutnick on Sunday said that government spending could be separated from GDP reports, in response to questions about whether the spending cuts pushed by Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency could possibly cause an economic downturn. “You know that governments historically have messed with GDP,” Lutnick said on Fox News Channel’s Sunday Morning Futures. “They count government spending as part of GDP. So I’m going to separate those two and make it transparent.” Doing so could potentially complicate or distort a fundamental measure of the US economy’s health. Government spending is traditionally included in the GDP because
Two daughters of an Argentine mountaineer who died on an icy peak 40 years ago have retrieved his backpack from the spot — finding camera film inside that allowed them a glimpse of some of his final experiences. Guillermo Vieiro was 44 when he died in 1985 — as did his climbing partner — while descending Argentina’s Tupungato lava dome, one of the highest peaks in the Americas. Last year, his backpack was spotted on a slope by mountaineer Gabriela Cavallaro, who examined it and contacted Vieiro’s daughters Guadalupe, 40, and Azul, 44. Last month, the three set out with four other guides