Handwritten banners scrawled with the words "No entry," or "Only residents allowed" hung from one street in San Pedro de la Paz, a coastal community close to Chile's rubble-strewn second city of Concepcion.

After identifying themselves, a visitor was allowed to enter and make his way to a group standing guard over their homes and neighborhood. No one spoke.

Deprived of sleep since Saturday's 8.8-magnitude earthquake rattled their communities, such self-defense groups remain on edge, fearful they could fall prey to desperate bands of looters roaming the streets.

Chile's outgoing President Michelle Bachelet has sent 14,000 troops to the worst-affected towns south of the captial Santiago, and an 18-hour curfew has been slapped on central Concepcion and its surrounding areas.

Armored vehicles were stationed at strategic points across the city, as armed soldiers patrolled the streets on the lookout for any trouble after stores were ransacked and even torched on Monday.

But across many neighborhoods, residents were taking matters into their own hands. Some carried rifles, standing guard on their doorsteps, gathered around fires providing some light at night-time as electricity remaining patchy.

Others erected tents in the streets. Witnesses spoke of attacks, of upscale areas being pillaged, of homes and businesses which have been completely ransacked.

In Hualpen, also a coastal suburb of Concepcion, the mayor choked back tears in a radio interview describing the devastation brought by a wave of armed looters.

"The thugs have taken over the city. Now we are not afraid of the earthquakes, we're afraid of the criminals," Hualpen mayor Marcelo Rivera told Chilean radio station Bio-Bio.

"Please madame president, I am begging you to help us. The district has been overrun by a mob of 500 people with sticks who are stealing computers, everything they can find in people's homes."

He urged the government to send in a contingent of troops, and grimly warned: "If they have to kill, then let them kill."

The Chilean military Tuesday began distributing food and water to some of the most needy areas, bringing in water tanks in some parts of Concepcion, and vowed to restore law and order.

"Our emphasis is on the coastal areas for now," General Bosco Pesse told AFP. "People seem very happy to see the army moving in here to help after this disaster.

"We are bringing in engineers to clear roads, setting up mobile clinics and country hospitals, searching for corpses along the coast, stepping up night patrols to avoid mayhem."

The army has set up an emergency headquarters in the town of Talac, which was buzzing Tuesday with soldiers consulting maps and computers.

In Constitucion, some 300 kilometers (180 miles) south of Santiago, two army helicopters landed with 2.5 tonnes of food, including tinned tuna, milk and tea.

Bachelet on Tuesday tried to offer reassurances as she ordered in more troops, saying they would help restore law and order.

Outraged at the vandalism, she said it was not acceptable that "people have to organize mechanisms for their self-defense, just to hold onto the few possessions that they still have after the earthquake."

But for those on the ground, the president's actions were too little, too late, as they complained that the authorities have only flown over the area without seeing for themselves what is happening on the ground.

"Their reality is not what we are going through," said the Hualpen mayor. "Take control with force, please," he begged.

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