Pervasive Post-Quake Looting Dismays Chileans

Martin Bernetti/AFP/Getty Images

A Chilean flag flutters next to a destroyed house in Constitucion, some 300 km south of Santiago, on March 4, 2010. The official death toll from Saturday's 8.8-magnitude earthquake in Chile and the tsunami it unleashed rose from 795 to 799 Wednesday, the national emergency office said.

Crime is low in Chile, a country considered Latin America's most politically and socially stable. So the widespread looting that has followed last weekend's earthquake astonished many Chileans — and has people questioning just how much progress Chile has really made.

The earthquake in Chile — one of history's most potent — triggered tsunamis that slammed coastal areas. But it also touched off man-made chaos: widespread looting.

The assault on stores astonished Chileans, who thought their country was immune to that kind of mayhem. It is prompting much soul-searching among some in a nation considered Latin America's most politically and socially stable.

Crime is low in Chile. Poverty levels have fallen dramatically. And economists say Chile will soon attain the status of a developed nation in a continent marked by third-world conditions.

But the looting exposed social fissures in Chile. Chileans like Piero Mosciatti, director of Radio Bio-Bio in the earthquake zone, say it has people questioning just how much progress Chile has really made.

He says there are deep-seated resentments felt by those on the margins of society — people who felt they haven't shared in Chile's good times. Mosciatti says the looting that followed Saturday's 8.8 magnitude quake shows that income inequality in Chile is perhaps greater than previously thought.

A Continuing Problem

At first, the looters targeted supermarkets in Concepcion — Chile's second-largest metropolitan area — and surrounding towns. Then, they turned to clothing boutiques and electronics stores — burning some of them to the ground in a frenzy.

The few policemen were powerless to stop them. The military was not called to restore order for a full day after the raids began.

Still, even days later, looters combed through gutted stores and overturned shipping containers on Concepcion's destroyed port.

Pablo Castro, 19, says it is necessary to find food and milk. He says the general chaos led him and others to turn their attention to malls and other stores.

Subsequent tremors and the threat of another tsunami have prompted more looting in recent days.

Losses To Looting

In downtown Concepcion, residents gingerly step on broken glass to see how their neighborhood supermarket was sacked of practically everything. A heavily armed soldier now stands guard outside.

Patricia Solar, a housewife, says she understands why it happened. She says stores were closed after the quake — and that one day of that was fine. But two?

People were desperate, she explains, and couldn't be stopped.

On the corner, Hugo Carrasco hawks newspapers. But his nearby newsstand was destroyed, as was the big clothing store nearby, which was gutted by fire after being emptied by looters.

He lost everything, he says, not to the quake, but to the looters.

He says he'd never seen anything like it: a giant mob of people who had lost all reason.

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