Thousands left homeless after Chile quake as death toll reaches 700

By Jason Mitchell and David Derbyshire

Destroyed: A block of flats is split in two in the city of Concepcion, one of the worst-hit by the earthquake


The death toll from the massive earthquake that struck Chile doubled to more than 700 last night.

Rescue workers said 350 people had been killed in one coastal town after the 8.8 magnitude quake destroyed houses and a tsunami washed fishing boats on to land and flipped over cars.

President Michelle Bachelet said the devastation in Constitucion, some 220 miles south of the capital Santiago, had pushed the overall death toll up to 708 and warned that the total was likely to rise

She added that Saturday's earthquake - one of the most powerful to hit the world in 100 years - 'was a catastrophe of devastating consequences'.

Fears are also growing for a Scots couple who have not been in touch with their family since Saturday’s massive earthquake.

Kirsty Duff and Dave Sandercock were staying in the town of Pichilemu when the quake hit. The keen surfers were in the middle of a trip around South America, and were there to sample the local beaches.


After shock: Looters empty a store in Pueco, Chile


Kirsty’s cousin Clare Slipper, 19, said: 'We have not heard from them since Thursday. They arrived in Chile three weeks ago from Peru, and were living in the town, which is between the two cities badly affected by the earthquake.

'They are both really into surfing and had been travelling and they had went there to surf. The good news is there have been no reported fatalities or casualties in the town.

'But it has been quite badly damaged and because we have not heard from them the family is getting worried. We are just waiting to hear from the British Embassy just now in case there has been any news.'

The Stirling University graduates have been travelling around South America since last September.

Clare has uploaded details of Kirsty, 25, from Stonehaven, Aberdeenshire, onto Google Person Finder in a bid to get news.

The website was set up following the tragedy in a bid to help people trace anyone missing.

The management and Spanish graduate is described as blonde, 5ft 10inch tall with blue eyes. She met boyfriend Dave, also 25, of Edinburgh, while studying at university and the pair were celebrating graduating by going on the tour

Blond Dave is also 5ft 10, and could be sporting a beard. Dave’s sister Ellie, who is currently living in Nigeria, has also set up a Twitter account and is appealing for news.

Another couple, Andre Lanyon from Guernsey and Laura Hapgood, both 29, also went to Pichilemu on Friday.

The Surfer's Cottage, an eco-cottage for surfers in Pichilemu, posted details of those who were missing on its website.

As well as the two couples, this included another Briton Tina Cadwallader Lopes, who was in the resort with her Portuguese husband and two children.

President Bachelet said two million people had been affected and hundreds of thousands left homeless by the quake. Dealing with the aftermath is expected to cost up to £20billion.
There was looting in Concepcion, 60 miles from the epicentre, where many of the deaths occurred and where rescue workers were yesterday trying to free more than 100 people trapped below a collapsed 15-storey building.


Search: Rescue workers look for earthquake victims in a collapsed building in Concepcion, Chile


Police used tear gas and water cannon against looters at a supermarket. Last night a curfew was imposed.

Across the narrow South American country yesterday people slept outside for a second night in fear of aftershocks. Some measured more than 6 on the Richter scale.

The epicentre of the earthquake which struck in the early hours on Saturday was some 30 miles off Chile's coast. Hundreds of thousands of people in 53 countries were evacuated from their homes and millions more put on alert after a tsunami from the quake raced across the Pacific.

However, the tidal wave proved to be less destructive than feared and areas as far apart as Australia, Hawaii, Phillipines and Russia emerged unscathed.

Chile has a large British expatriate population but Britain's ambassador to Chile, Jon Benjamin, said he had received no reports of British casualties.

The damage in Chile would have been far higher if the country had not been so well prepared for a major quake. Building regulations were tightened up after a 9.5 magnitude earthquake in 1960 - the largest ever recorded - killed 1,655.


discovery: The body of an earthquake victim is recovered from a damaged house in Concepcion


Around 90 per cent of the world's earthquakes take place on the so-called Ring of Fire, an arc that circles the Pacific Basin.

The ring stretches from Chile, passes up the west coast of America, through Alaska and down East Asia to New Zealand.

As well as being the world's earthquake hot spot, it is home to more than half of the world's active volcanoes above sea level and coincides with the edges of one of the world's main tectonic plates.

Over the past 50 years, scientists have shown that the surface of the Earth is covered with a patchwork of gigantic plates, each around 50 miles thick, which float around on the planet's molten interior.

The tectonic plates drift - sometimes moving apart from each other, sometimes rubbing up and sometimes colliding. They move at speeds of between half an inch and four inches a year.

Where the plates slide past each other - such as on the San Andreas fault that runs through California - earthquakes tend to be minor. But in subduction zones, where one plate pushes down under another, deep ocean trenches, volcanic eruptions and major quakes are common.

Saturday's quake took place at the boundary where the Nazca tectonic plate is sliding towards the South American plate. The jolt occurred when the Nazca plate slipped down underneath its neighbour.

Out of the ten most powerful earthquakes since 1900 the majority were on the Ring of Fire.





source: dailymail