Deaths, desperation rising in Chile; soldiers ordered in

After huddling in a crisis meeting with her Cabinet, President Michelle Bachelet called the damage caused by the magnitude-8.8 quake “an emergency unparalleled in the history of Chile’’ and suggested the death toll would probably spiral higher in the days ahead.

Police fired water cannons and tear gas to disperse hundreds of people who forced their way into shuttered shops in the southern city of Concepción, where damage was substantial. But law enforcement authorities, heeding the cries of residents that they lacked food and water, eventually settled on a system that allowed staples to be taken but not televisions and other electronic goods.

Bachelet later announced that the government had reached a deal with supermarket chains to give away food to needy residents. Her aides also called on residents not to horde gas or food, both of which were being bought up in huge amounts by residents fearful of shortages.

She said the government was imposing a curfew from 9 p.m. to 6 a.m. in the Concepción region to curb looting. Only security forces and other emergency personnel will be allowed on the streets. Police vehicles with loudspeakers notified civilians of the rule.

Using power saws and their bare hands, rescue workers atop the rubble of collapsed buildings tried to extract those caught inside. Although there were successes - like Julio Beliz, who managed to free his neighbor from the rubble in Santiago after hearing him yell out, “Julio, help me!’’ - the search for survivors was frustratingly slow

“It’s very difficult working in the dark with aftershocks, and inside it’s complicated,’’ said Paulo Klein, who led a group of rescue workers at a collapsed 15-story apartment building in Concepción.

Residents of that building, opened just months ago, were outraged that it had suffered so much damage and were convinced that contractors had not complied with building codes that require buildings to be able to withstand temblors. Already, there was talk among residents of taking builders to court once the emergency is over.

The magnitude-8.8 earthquake, one of the strongest in recorded history, left a devastating footprint on a country that knows quakes well.

In Cobquecura, 50 miles to the north of Concepción, state television showed collapsed bridges, crashed buses, and sunken pavement. Residents had fled to the hills, prompting local journalists to declare it a virtual ghost town.

In remote coastal towns, strong waves had obliterated homes, and boats were found on land, parked next to overturned cars. The authorities acknowledged that the damage was spread over such a vast area that they were just beginning to get a handle on it.

Early yesterday, a 6.1-magnitude aftershock, one of more than 100 that have followed the original quake, sent residents scrambling for cover. With the earth still unsettled, many Chileans have opted to camp outside.

In Maipu, outside the capital, the authorities inspected an apartment building, found it relatively stable, and allowed residents half an hour each to hustle inside and remove any personal belongings, local media reported.

Among the quake’s victims were Lurde Margarita Arias Dias, 24, and her infant child, Peruvian immigrants who were crushed as a wall toppled in their Santiago home. “I tried to save them,’’ Adan Noe Saavedra Rios, Lurde’s husband, told local reporters with tears in his eyes. He described his frantic wife trying to rush from the house with their daughter in her arms after the ground started moving. Before he knew it, he recounted, they were covered in rubble.

At the hospital in Talca, near the epicenter, medical personnel were treating quake victims in the parking lot because the hospital building was considered structurally unsound.

Bachelet, speaking at a midday news conference, called on power distribution companies to work quickly to repair their networks so that services can be restored and the country can begin to get back on its feet.

“We need energy first,’’ the president said, pointing out that cellphone communications, medical care, and water distribution depended on it.

Bachelet, who will leave office on March 11, said the country would accept some of the offers of aid that have poured in from around the world. She said that the bulk of the known deaths, 541 of 708, took place in the Maule region, the country’s leading wine-growing area along the coast, followed by Biobio, where at least 64 people died. The military will take charge in those areas for the next month, she said.

Responding to outbreaks of looting in Concepción, the local mayor, Jacqueline van Rysselberghe, had earlier called on federal officials to bring in the military to keep the tense situation from spinning out of control. She said it was not just desperate people who were cleaning out the stores but opportunists who were attempting to enrich themselves.

Despite ugly images of confrontation between police and residents, federal officials said the traumatized country remained mostly calm. Bachelet’s order will mean 10,000 soldiers will help in the relief effort, Defense Minister Francisco Vidal said.

The scenes of toppled buildings, overturned cars, and bodies being hauled from rubble resembled those from Haiti a month and a half ago. But because of better building standards and because the epicenter was farther from populated areas, the scale of the damage from Chile’s significantly more powerful earthquake was nowhere near that suffered in Haiti, where more than 200,000 people are believed to have perished.

Still, many Chileans felt lucky to have survived the violent jerking of the earth.

“It was like God said, ‘No, run out the back,’ ’’ said Carmen Peña, 48, a grandmother whose home in Santiago was in shambles. “If we’d gone out the front, we’d be dead.’’

The earthquake hit during Chile’s summer vacation, leaving thousands of Chileans stranded overseas. There were frantic scenes at airports throughout the region as the closing of the damaged Santiago airport prompted airlines to cancel or reroute flights away from the Chilean capital.