The current position：Home — NewsChile steps up search for victims in quake-hit areas
Date:2010-3-3 16:50:13 Hited:1
CONCEPCION, Chile (Reuters) – Chilean rescue crews fanned out with sniffer dogs on Wednesday around quake-ravaged cities and villages, some still hoping to find survivors and others to begin the daunting task of recovering the bodies buried under mountains of rubble.
Four days after the 8.8-magnitude earthquake rocked south-central Chile and killed nearly 800 people, police and troops managed to quell the looting and violence that brought chaos to the hard-hit city of Concepcion, 70 miles southeast of the epicenter.
An 18-hour nightly curfew remained in place in Concepcion, one of a handful of cities and villages where some 7,000 soldiers were patrolling the streets to keep order and ensure that food and water were properly distributed.
With aid now flowing to the population in a more orderly fashion, rescue crews stepped up the search in towns from Concepcion further north to Constitucion for any survivors trapped in the debris.
So far, 795 people have been confirmed dead, either killed by one of the world's biggest earthquakes in a century or the tsunami it triggered along Chile's coastline.
The death toll is likely to rise, with some reports putting the number of missing as high as 500 in Constitucion alone. The city, with a population of nearly 40,000, accounts for nearly half the official death toll.
Officials cautioned that many of the missing may have fled to safety and have been unable to contact relatives because of damage to telephone lines.
"It's important to point out that a lot of people may be cut off because of the communications problems," said Victor Hugo Illanes, an official at the National Emergency Office in the capital, Santiago.
Officially, the government puts the number of missing at 19, based on specific cases that have been reported to the police. But officials acknowledge the figure could be much higher.
With looting now largely under control, authorities dispatched crews with dogs trained to locate the dead, to start the grim task of pulling bodies from the rubble.
Many Chileans complained that scores of deaths could have been avoided had the government responded more decisively to the quake, which set off a roaring tsunami a few hours later that killed many along the coastline.
Four days after the 8.8-magnitude earthquake rocked south-central Chile and killed nearly 800 people, police and troops managed to quell the looting and violence that brought chaos to the hard-hit city of Concepcion, 70 miles southeast of the epicenter.
An 18-hour nightly curfew remained in place in Concepcion, one of a handful of cities and villages where some 7,000 soldiers were patrolling the streets to keep order and ensure that food and water were properly distributed.
With aid now flowing to the population in a more orderly fashion, rescue crews stepped up the search in towns from Concepcion further north to Constitucion for any survivors trapped in the debris.
So far, 795 people have been confirmed dead, either killed by one of the world's biggest earthquakes in a century or the tsunami it triggered along Chile's coastline.
The death toll is likely to rise, with some reports putting the number of missing as high as 500 in Constitucion alone. The city, with a population of nearly 40,000, accounts for nearly half the official death toll.
Officials cautioned that many of the missing may have fled to safety and have been unable to contact relatives because of damage to telephone lines.
"It's important to point out that a lot of people may be cut off because of the communications problems," said Victor Hugo Illanes, an official at the National Emergency Office in the capital, Santiago.
Officially, the government puts the number of missing at 19, based on specific cases that have been reported to the police. But officials acknowledge the figure could be much higher.
With looting now largely under control, authorities dispatched crews with dogs trained to locate the dead, to start the grim task of pulling bodies from the rubble.
Many Chileans complained that scores of deaths could have been avoided had the government responded more decisively to the quake, which set off a roaring tsunami a few hours later that killed many along the coastline.