Minister Blamed Navy
Written By Robert on March 1st, 2010
Chile’s defense minister blamed the Navy on Sunday for not issuing a tsunami warning after an 8.8 magnitude earthquake rocked the South American country. Such a forewarning could have allowed villagers on the coast to flee to higher ground. Of the 708 reported dead as of Sunday afternoon, 541 died in Chile’s Maule region, and 64 in the Bio Bio region, both on the coast. “The truth even if it hurts (is that) a division of the Navy made a mistake,” Minister Francisco Vidal told reporters. After the quake struck Saturday morning, President Michelle Bachelet said a tsunami was unlikely.
More than 50 countries posted tsunami warnings, and Chilean authorities later realized that the large waves that slammed their country’s coastal areas were tsunami-generated. “What we saw between the sixth and the ninth region is a tsunami,” Vidal said. The Navy has in place an emergency system under which captains in each port may issue warnings when sea levels begin to rise — even when the Navy itself does not. Those port captains were the ones who eventually sounded the alarm, warning residents to flee, and helped prevent additional loss of lives. “There was a mistake,” Vidal said. “Fortunately, the system was activated.”
By Monday, heavily populated parts of the country were without water and electricity, with reports of looting raising fears about security in some areas. The nation’s hardest-hit major city declared a nighttime curfew. Calling the quake an “unthinkable disaster,” Bachelet said a “state of catastrophe” in the worst-hit regions would continue, allowing for the restoration of order and speedy distribution of aid.
Looting broke out in parts of the country Sunday, including in hard-hit Concepcion in central coastal Chile, about 70 miles (115 km) from the earthquake’s epicenter. Desperate residents scrounged for water and supplies inside empty and damaged supermarkets. Authorities used tear gas and water cannons to disperse looters in some areas. Chilean President-elect Sebastian Pinera, scheduled to be sworn in this month, warned Sunday that looting could grow worse with nightfall, calling for more government help in restoring order. “Tonight we will experience a very, very difficult situation with public order, particularly in the area of Concepcion,” Pinera told Radio Bio Bio.
