South American Food History
Mar0
Rescuers searched for survivors Monday as crews sought to deliver food and water and prevent looting after the fifth strongest earthquake in 100 years ravaged central and southern Chile. The massive 8.8 magnitude earthquake hit the South American country on Saturday just after 3 a.m. local time.
More than 1.5 million people were without power in and around the capital of Santiago, according to Chile's National Emergency Office, but the hardest-hit areas were farther south, in the Maule and Bio Bio regions along the coast.
Authorities said 541 of the 708 reported deaths happened in Maule, where a sewer system collapsed, water towers were close to toppling and communities lacked basic services, the emergency office said. Many people were without safe drinking water and electricity or gas service in Bio Bio, where 64 deaths occurred, according to the Chilean government's latest figures.
Unlike the massive quake that leveled much of the capital of Haiti six weeks ago and killed more than 200,000, the death toll from Saturday's quake — with 500 times the power of the Haitian one — in Chile is much lower, according to reports, because of the country's higher building standards and emergency preparedness due to the frequency of strong earthquakes in the region.
Rescuers from Santiago, fresh from a stint in earthquake-ravaged Haiti, worked through the night to free people who could be trapped in a 15-story building in the hard-hit city of Concepcion in central coastal Chile, about 70 miles (115 kilometers) from the earthquake's epicenter.
Calling the quake an "unthinkable disaster," President Bachelet said a "state of catastrophe" in the worst-hit regions would continue, allowing for the restoration of order and speedy distribution of aid.
Bachelet continued:
"We're facing an emergency without parallel in the history of Chile. The passage of time has demonstrated that we're facing a catastrophe of unforeseen intensity, one that caused damages that are going to require immense, united efforts from all sectors of the country -- private and public."
More than 90 aftershocks have been recorded, ranging from 4.9 to 6.9 in magnitude. The Chilean Red Cross reported that some 500,000 homes sustained considerable damage.
Bachelet has said some 2 million people had been affected in one way or another. (CNN)