Chilean quake death toll now 708, says president

SANTIAGO — The death toll from a massive magnitude-8.8 earthquake that hit Chile Saturday has increased to 708 and could rise further, President Michelle Bachelet said in a televised speech on Sunday.

The earthquake killed around 350 people in the coastal town of Constitucion, which was also hit by a tsunami, state television quoted emergency officials as saying.

Television images from the fishing port of Constitucion, about 350 kilometres southwest of the capital Santiago, showed houses destroyed by the quake and a tsunami, which had washed large fishing boats onto land and flipped over cars.

Hundreds of thousands of homes and some highways across central Chile were seriously damaged by Saturday’s quake, dealing a heavy blow to infrastructure in the world’s No. 1 copper producer and one of Latin America’s most stable economies.

A lack of water, food and fuel sharpened the hardship for hundreds of thousands of people left homeless by the quake and widespread disruption to the power supply threatened to hamper Chilean industry’s recovery.

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3 Responses to Chilean quake death toll now 708, says president

  1. Mac says:

    Not good. We’re already spread thin…

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  2. interesting post. I really liked it.

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  3. Cy says:

    Even for spam, that’s pretty low.

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