Looters raided more stores in Concepcion today as thousands of Chilean troops struggled to restore order after a huge earthquake and tsunamis killed more than 700 people.
Police fired tear gas at looters at one supermarket that later caught fire in Concepcion, more than two days after the 8.8-magnitude quake devastated towns across central Chile and sent tsunamis barrelling into coastal communities.
President Michelle Bachelet, calling the earthquake an "enormous catastrophe," has dispatched 10,000 soldiers and imposed curfews to restore order and said her government was sending emergency food and medicine supplies.
A curfew went into effect overnight in the Maule region and in Concepcion, where hundreds of looters complaining of a lack of food and water have ransacked stores. Looting also broke out over the weekend in parts of the capital, Santiago.
Power cuts and mangled roads have slowed relief efforts and threatened to set back a recovery in one of Latin America's most stable economies and the world's biggest copper producer.
The death toll stands at 711 and is expected to rise, but both the human and economic cost could have been a lot worse given the size of the quake, one of the world's biggest in the last century.
Chilean rescuers found signs of life today in a collapsed apartment block in Concepcion, the nearest major city to the epicentre of the quake.
Workers heard knocking and other sounds beneath the ruins of the 14-storey building and were drilling into the rubble to try to reach the possible survivors. About 60 people were thought to have been killed when the block crumbled.
Many people were still missing in some communities in the worst-hit central region of Chile.
Surging waves ruined houses and smashed cars in fishing villages on the country's long Pacific coast. In the town of Constitucion alone, 350 people were reported to have died and a public gym was turned into a makeshift morgue.
Throughout the region, families struggled to get basic supplies and protect themselves.
Damage from the quake could cost up to $30 billion, equivalent to about 15 percent of Chile's gross domestic product, said Eqecat, a firm that helps insurers model catastrophe risks.
Some economists predicted a deep impact on Chile's economy after the quake damaged industrial and agricultural sectors in the worst-hit regions, but said the country's solid fiscal position would help reconstruction efforts.
"Chile has ample resources abroad to help finance the cost of its rebuilding efforts," Credit Suisse said. "Alternatively, it should be in a comfortable position to tap external and/or local debt markets."
Reuters