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Santiago (AFP) March 24, 2010 The massive earthquake that struck central Chile last month, triggering a local tsunami, caused nearly 30 billion dollars in damage, the finance ministry said Wednesday. Of the total destruction wrought by the February 27 temblor, one of the worst on record, The government will have to absorb 9.3 billion dollars in costs resulting from the February 27 temblor. The remainder will be picked up by insurance companies (4.9 billion) and the private sector (7.8 billion), the ministry said in a report. Additionally, the country will take a 7.6-billion-dollar loss to its output, the report said. President Sebastian Pinera's government has not yet said how it will finance massive rebuilding needs. The earthquake, which was especially devastating in the Biobio and Maule regions, killed 452 peop0le and left about 100 more missing.
earlier related report Defense Minister Jaime Ravinet denounced the collapse of the national emergency system in the hours following the quake, which struck at 3:34 am on February 27, in a speech at Chile's Military School. "It is important to acknowledge that this natural catastrophe demonstrated a weakness in a country that seeks to belong to the First World, that wants to be developed... but where a lack of electricity and communications practically paralyzed us and that could have been from a foreign attack," he said. The fears are not specious: Chile almost went to war with Argentina over a southern border dispute in 1978, and the conflict was only settled in 1984 after Pope John Paul II intervened. There was also a war scare in 1979, on the 100th anniversary of the start of a war in which Bolivia lost its access to the sea and Peru lost two provinces to Chile. In the first hours after the quake information was so sparse that the navy's Oceanography Service failed to provide a clear warning of the killer tsunami that slammed the Chilean coast. Then-president Michelle Bachelet even went on a national broadcast and told Chileans there was no danger of a tsunami. Some people then went down to the beach, and were caught by the giant wave. Before leaving office on March 11, Bachelet fired the head of the Oceanography Service and accepted the resignation of the head of Chile's emergency management agency, ONEMI. The magnitude 8.8 earthquake killed 452 people, according to official figures, and about 100 have been reported missing.
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