Chile earthquake kills 300 as hunt for survivors continues

Published: 5:43AM GMT twenty-eight February 2010

Previous of Images Next A child stands among the rubble of his home after a vital trembler in Santiago, Chile Photo: REUTERS Residents see at a collapsed construction in Concepcion, Chile Photo: AP The vital upheaval lasted one notation and was quickly followed by a array of aftershocks trimming from 5.6 to 6.9 on the bulk scale Photo: AP A proprietor removes the rubble of a broken residence in Talca, Chile Photo: AP Two women lay by a glow with their dog subsequent to a raise of rubble Photo: AFP/GETTY Locals take to the streets of Santiago Photo: EPA

In an residence to the republic on Saturday, President Michelle Bachelet pronounced dual million Chileans had been influenced but, after furloughed the worst-hit areas by plane, she found it tough to spell out the bulk of the disaster.

"The energy of inlet has again struck the country," Bachelet said, dogmatic 6 of Chile"s fifteen regions "catastrophe zones" in the issue of the 8.8-magnitude quake.

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Highways in the South American republic of sixteen million were sliced to pieces, bridges imploded and buildings collapsed as the trembler struck at pre-dawn hours Saturday a small 325 kilometers (200 miles) southwest of the collateral Santiago.

"This is a mess of measureless proportions, so it will be unequivocally formidable to give accurate figures," Interior Minister Edmundo Perez Yoma said. Officials after pronounced at slightest 300 people had been killed.

Waves well over dual meters (seven feet) high crashed in to the Chilean seashore after the upheaval struck at 3:34 am (0634 GMT) and tore out in to the Pacific, murdering at slightest five people in the remote Robinson Crusoe islands.

In the Chilean pier of Talcahuano, trawlers were sent sharpened internal to the locale block where they lay infrequently marooned subsequent to deserted cars.

About 50 countries and territories along an arc stretching from New Zealand to Japan braced for hulk waves, five years after the Indian Ocean tsunami mess that killed some-more than 220,000 people.

More than 70,000 people fled exposed coastal areas of Japan Sunday as a tsunami slammed in to the country"s prolonged Pacific coastline.

"Please do not proceed the seashore at any cost," Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama pronounced in nationally televised comments as Japan, one of the world"s majority quake-prone nations, went on the initial vital tsunami rapt in fifteen years.

The initial tsunami wave, thirty centimetres (one foot) high, strike Nemuro on the northern island of Hokkaido in the early afternoon, the Meteorological Agency said.

The large upheaval plunged most of Santiago in to darkness, gnawing energy lines, disjunction communications. The general airfield was sealed after nutritious poignant repairs to the terminal.

Many Chileans were still in nightclubs merrymaking at the begin of the week end when the upheaval struck prior to dawn, ripping up roads, bringing roofs crashing down and toppling energy lines.

"It was the misfortune experience of my life," pronounced 22-year-old Sebastian, station outward his residence in eastern Santiago.

"Friends who were at clubs pronounced it was pandemonium," pronounced Santiago proprietor Maren Andrea Jimenez, an American consultant operative for the United Nations. "It was scary! Plaster began descending from the ceiling."

President Barack Obama pronounced the United States "stands ready to support in the rescue and liberation efforts, and we have resources that are positioned to muster should the Chilean supervision ask for the help."

"Early indications are that hundreds of lives have been lost in Chile and repairs is severe. On interest of the American people, Michelle and I send the deepest condolences to the Chilean people," he pronounced at the White House.

The sum worth of mercantile repairs caused by the upheaval is expected to range in in between fifteen billion and thirty billion dollars, a US risk displaying organisation predicted.

Despite officials observant up to 1.5 million homes could be affected, Chile"s Foreign Minister Mariano Fernandez asked countries that had offering assist to hold off until internal authorities could consider the puncture needs.

Chile does not wish "aid from anywhere to be a distraction" from mess relief, Fernandez said, adding: "Any assist that arrives but carrying been dynamic to be indispensable unequivocally helps unequivocally little."

The European Union pronounced it would yield 3 million euros (four million dollars) in evident assistance. Unlike Haiti, struck by a harmful trembler last month, Chile is one of Latin America"s wealthiest countries.

The US Geological Survey pronounced it had available some-more than 51 aftershocks trimming from 4.9 to 6.9 given the quake.

Earthquake-prone Chile lies along the Pacific edge of glow and is continually rocked by quakes, but repairs is often singular as they often strike in remote dried regions.

It was the second vital trembler to strike the Western hemisphere in 7 weeks after some-more than 200,000 people were killed in Haiti last month by a 7.0-magnitude quake.

The epicenter was only a couple of hundred miles north of the greatest trembler on record, a 9.5-magnitude beast in May 1960 that killed in in between 2,200 and 5,700 people and triggered a outrageous tsunami that reached as far as eastern New Zealand.