Chile quake-area still shaking, death toll unclear

05/03/2010 20:15:26

A series of strong aftershocks rattled south-central Chile on Friday, panicking residents nearly a week after one of the most powerful earthquakes on record rocked the area and killed hundreds of people.

The government of outgoing President Michelle Bachelet said it was revising faulty death toll figures after authorities mistakenly tallied scores of missing who later turned up alive.

In the ravaged city of Concepcion, the country's second largest, some people ran out of their houses or jumped out of the vehicles they have been sleeping in since their homes were destroyed as seven intense tremors shook the area on Friday.

The strongest of the aftershocks was a magnitude 6.6.

"Some chunks of buildings that were already in bad condition fell, but nothing significant," the top government official in quake-hit Bio Bio region told local radio.

Saturday's 8.8-magnitude quake, and a series of giant waves that followed, destroyed hundreds of thousands of homes, wrecked bridges and roads, and cracked modern buildings in half in the capital, Santiago. It also wreaked havoc on some of Chile's famous wineries and briefly shut down some of the world's richest copper mines.

The Chilean navy said there was no risk of tsunamis from the new aftershocks and people did not stray too far into the streets of Concepcion since the army had imposed a curfew until mid-day to control sporadic looting.

"It was terrible," said a frightened elderly man outside his house. "The three aftershocks that we just felt were very st

rong, I don't know when this is going to end."

The government said on Thursday the death toll, previously reported as 802, was unclear due to confusion over who was missing. Officials said they had identified 279 victims but were not sure how many bodies were unidentified.

Chile's two major newspapers said on Friday the government had revised down its calculation of fatalities in the hard-hit Maule region to 316 from a previous 587.

GOVERNMENT CRITICIZED

The confusion over the death toll prompted harsh criticism of Chile's National Emergency Office, known as Onemi, which President-elect Sebastian Pinera has pledged to overhaul.

In a blog posted on the daily El Mercurio website, the former head of Onemi, Alberto Maturana, called the agency's handling of the disaster "a comedy of errors."

"The agency has no validity in public opinion, when it is supposed to be the most credible," he was quoted as saying.

The doubts over the death toll are likely to persist, partly because an undetermined number of victims were washed out to sea in the ensuing tsunamis and some bodies may never be recovered.

"The number of disappeared is very difficult to determine," said Patricio Bustos, a government forensics specialist in Talca, a city in central Chile that was hit hard by the quake. "It can take a very long time."

The government was already under fire for being slow to send aid to the region, for underestimating damages at first, and for failing to properly alert coastal towns to a tsunami.

In Concepcion, looting was mostly under control as hundreds of troops patrolled the streets and handed out food and water. Long lines formed at one of the few grocery stores finally opened to customers.

But in the nearby port town of Talcahuano, which was engulfed by huge waves after the quake, looters rummaged through a factory and a retail store on Thursday.

United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon was expected to tour Concepcion and other badly hit towns later on Friday. He is also scheduled to meet with Bachelet and Pinera, who will take office on March 11 in a swearing-in ceremony that will be toned down because of the earthquake.

As more information comes out about the extent of damages in the world's top copper producer and one of Latin America's most stable countries, analysts say the economy could bounce back from losses in the second half of the year as money flows in for reconstruction.

"We are not only going to rebuild what was destroyed, we are going to rebuild it with better technology and with better procedures," the silver-haired Pinera said on Friday, adding that his government plans to revamp Chile's catastrophe-alert system in hopes of limiting the death toll from future quakes.

Bachelet, whose popularity is being tested by the disaster, said the new government will need to tap international lenders for money to rebuild.

Ratings agency Standard and Poor's has said the quake would have no immediate effect on Chile's credit quality.

(Additional reporting by Mario Naranjo in Concepcion and Esteb

an Israel in Santiago; writing by Mica Rosenberg and Todd Benson; editing by Mohammad Zargham)