CONCEPCION, Chile — Chile’s president defended herself Tuesday against charges of government incompetence in a disaster that not only shattered lives and property but challenged the nation’s very identity.
A society built on pride in its wealth and orderliness found itself suddenly facing gangs of rioters, a wounded economy and a shaken sense of civic responsibility. A government that sent 15 tons of food and medicine, a search-and- rescue team and 20 doctors to Haiti after the earthquake there found itself seeking emergency aid from other countries.
The death toll rose to 796 Tuesday, and aftershocks continued to roll through the region.
In Lota, a former coal mining town of 30,000 along the heavily damaged coast, Mayor Jorge Venegas said Tuesday that a “psychosis” had taken hold.
A gas station went up in flames, gunfire rattled through the night and residents guarded streets against roaming bands of looters, he told Radio Bio Bio. He said 2,000 homes had been destroyed, thousands were living in the streets and people were wielding guns, iron bars and long sticks to protect their possessions.
“It’s urgent that the army reach our city,” Venegas pleaded.
“It’s a collective hysteria,” said Francisco Santa Cruz, 20, an aid worker caring for 56 families in a camp for the newly homeless in San Pedro, across the Bio Bio River from Concepcion, the biggest city in the quake zone.
Like Venegas in Lota, Santa Cruz said he heard gunfire throughout the night.
“They used to call us (Chileans) the jaguars of South America,” he said, using Chilean slang for proud and strong. “But now we know that we’re not even close to that.”
President Michelle Bachelet was on the defensive against claims that the government’s response was a failure.
La Tercera, an influential daily, said the looting and violence showed “incomprehensible weakness and slowness” by authorities. El Mercurio, a conservative publication many consider Chile’s paper of record, called on President-elect Sebastian Piñera, who takes office March 11, to “restore hope” to Chile.
The government on Monday imposed an 8 p.m-to-noon curfew and sent 14,000 troops to Concepcion and surrounding areas to stop widespread looting — after virtually every market in the city had been sacked. On Tuesday, the curfew was extended to begin at 6 p.m.
“People probably are always going to feel that we could have done things better,” Bachelet insisted before receiving U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, who promised American aid. “But the reality is given the extent (of destruction), it always will be insufficient.”
