At least three people died after a supermarket in the Chilean capital Santiago was set alight by demonstrators, while many flights into the city’s airport were suspended as crew were unable to get to work, the city’s governor said on Sunday.
Santiago and other Chilean cities have been engulfed by several days of rioting as protests over an increase in public transport costs prompted president Sebastián Piñera to declare a state of emergency.
Santiago governor Karla Rubilar confirmed that three people died in a supermarket in the capital that was set on fire by demonstrators on Saturday.
“We regret to inform that according to preliminary information from Chilean police two people were found fatally burned in San Bernardo and a seriously injured person was moved to hospital where they died,” she tweeted on Sunday. She did not name the supermarket.
Black-hooded protesters enraged by recent fare hikes on public transportation lit fires at several metro stations, looted shops, burned a public bus and swung metal pipes at train station turnstiles during Friday’s afternoon commute, according to witnesses, social media and television footage.
Mr Piñera spoke to the nation in the early hours of Saturday, declaring an emergency lockdown as sirens filled the night air downtown, and police and firefighters rushed to contain the damage.
The centre-right Mr Piñera said he would invoke a special state security law to prosecute the “criminals” responsible for the city-wide damage, while at the same time saying he sympathised with those affected by the rate hikes.
“In the coming days, our government will call for a dialogue . . . to alleviate the suffering of those affected by the increase in fares,” said Mr Piñera in the broadcast address.
Chile is one of Latin America's wealthiest nations, but also, among its most unequal. Frustrations over the high cost of living in Santiago have become a political flashpoint, prompting calls for reforms on everything from the country's tax and labour codes to its pension system.
Enel Chile, a subsidiary of Italian utility Enel, said vandals had set fire to the company’s high-rise corporate headquarters downtown. Local television footage showed flames climbing up the side of the building as fire crews struggled to break through growing crowds of protesters.
The company said that workers had been evacuated safely from the site.
Transport
High school and university students began the protests after the government hiked fares on October 6th to as much as €1.05 for a peak metro ride, blaming higher energy costs and a weaker peso.
The protests turned increasingly violent on Friday afternoon, however, and by early evening, officials had closed down all of the city’s 136 metro stations, which connect more than 87 miles of track.
The metro system will remain closed through the weekend, with officials saying “serious destruction” made it impossible to operate trains safely.
Flights operated by Chile’s biggest airlines Latam and another, Sky Airline, were suspended or delayed on Sunday morning after a curfew, a public transport shutdown and continued rioting left flight crews struggling to get to work, said Ms Rubilar.
Crowds of affected passengers were left stranded at the airport as a result.
Demonstrators clanging pots and honking horns clashed with police armed with batons and tear gas all across the normally subdued city late into Friday evening.
Metro management said there had been more than 200 incidents on Santiago’s subway system in the previous 11 days, mostly involving school children and older students jumping barriers and forcing gates.
Earlier on Friday, after a meeting with the metro chief and interior minister, minister for transport Gloria Hutt said the fare hike would not be reversed. She said the government subsidises almost half the operating costs of the metro, one of Latin America’s most modern.
“This is not a discussion that should have risen to the level of violence that we’ve seen,” she said.
Walmart Chile confirmed that it would close its stores across the country after 60 were damaged in the unrest in Santiago and its surroundings, Valparaíso, Antofagasta, Calama, Concepción, San Antonio and Temuco. –Reuters