CHILE: Residents in Chile's earthquake-ravaged city of Concepcion dump new televisions, fridges and furniture on roadsides avoid arrest as police prepare to search homes in a crackdown on looters

Record ID: 365747

  • Title: CHILE: Residents in Chile's earthquake-ravaged city of Concepcion dump new televisions, fridges and furniture on roadsides avoid arrest as police prepare to search homes in a crackdown on looters
  • Date: 4th March 2010
  • Summary: BABY PEOPLE SLEEPING ON THE FLOOR WITH A LITTLE GIRL AWAKE
  • Embargoed: 19th March 2010 12:00
  • Keywords:
  • Location: Chile
  • Country: Chile
  • Topics: Crime / Law Enforcement,Disasters / Accidents / Natural catastrophes
  • Reuters ID: LVA9KGBQG9OLTENEHM94D86U5HCN
  • Story Text: President Michelle Bachelet surveyed merchandise Sunday (March 7) returned after having been stolen from looted stores in the city of Conception after an 8.8 earthquake caused havoc.
    Residents in Chile's earthquake-ravaged city of Concepcion returned new televisions, fridges and furniture on Sunday (March 7) to avoid arrest as police prepared to search homes in a crackdown on looters.
    In the days after the quake, some people armed themselves with sticks and burned tires in front of their homes to deter thieves.
    Some have criticized Bachelet for not putting troops on the streets immediately after the quake in Chile, which could have helped prevent the looting.
    Police gave residents in Concepcion until midday on Sunday to return looted goods or face arrest, and had recovered dozens of truckloads of goods worth around $2 million stolen in the aftermath of the 8.8-magnitude quake and ensuing tsunamis that killed hundreds and devastated towns and cities.
    They filled a gymnasium floor-to-ceiling with boxed goods ranging from fans to chairs to stereos.
    Images of looters emptying supermarkets and running off with electrical appliances as well as food shocked many in normally orderly Chile. Looters even set fire to one supermarket in Concepcion after a stand-off with police.
    "I think that Chile is a bit traumatized by those thieves who were doing it to make some money from others pain," said Bachelet.
    "We are working everywhere with local governments, with the military, with the police, the volunteers to make sure that first things were first and that basic needs were reaching those who needed them," she continued. "That they have food and water. That the electricity and power be restored, the water, all the basic things get to the smallest cities."
    The residents of a makeshift camp in the hills not far from where Bachelet was speaking disagreed with her take on government aid.
    "Help from the government? Nothing, absolutely nothing. The authorities did not even find us shelter, said Alejandra Guzman who moved into the camp after losing everything. "These people came and took over this school because we were in the hills and we took over the school and we've been here."
    Some six hundred people have taken over the school building where communal life has replaced whatever they had before.
    President Bachelet and her government have faced widespread criticism from survivors, who say they were too slow to deliver aid and prevent looting amid a series of missteps in the wake of one of the biggest recorded quakes.
    Jaime Toha, the senior government official in the central Bio Bio region, said the atmosphere in Concepcion was returning to normal, and slightly eased a week-old curfew.
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