Chile has asked Canada for help in recovering from the devastating earthquake that has killed nearly 800 people and left hundreds of thousands homeless.
Chilean Ambassador Eugenio Ortega has sent the Canadian government a letter listing equipment that is urgently needed for the rescue and recovery efforts in the region hit hardest by Saturday's magnitude 8.8 quake. The Chileans are asking Canada for everything from a temporary field hospital with surgical facilities, electrical generators for hospitals in the disaster zone, a pontoon bridge and satellite phones.
The list was sent to Foreign Affairs Minister Lawrence Cannon and department spokesmen said Canada is working with Chile to determine what help we can offer.
Alain Cacchione, a spokesman for the Department of Foreign Affairs, said much of the equipment Chile is requesting has already been deployed to Haiti with the Canadian Forces' disaster response team.
"We're in contact with Chilean authorities to determine their areas of need and how we can meet them," he said.
Minister of International Cooperation Bev Oda announced Tuesday that Ottawa will provide up to $2 million for urgent humanitarian assistance to the people of Chile.
The death toll from the quake and the tsunami it triggered rose to 796 Tuesday and aftershocks continued to roll through the region, along a 700-kilometre stretch of Chile's Pacific coast.
Powerful aftershocks, combined with widespread looting and violence, have shaken ordinary Chileans, freelance reporter Jen Ross told CTV News Channel.
"The situation is looking more and more bleak as the hours go by, the days go by … It's very grim," she said. "People are concerned that Chile hasn't asked for help sooner."
As the death toll climbs almost hourly, strong aftershocks have added to public fears, Ross said. "There have been hundreds of aftershocks. People are on edge … the repeated aftershocks have destabilized buildings that seemed to be okay after the earthquake."
Downed bridges and damaged or debris-choked highways made transit difficult, but some international aid has begun flowing.
Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said the United States is sending satellite phones, which Chile identified as a high priority, as well as water purification systems, generators and medical equipment. It pledged more help, including a field hospital Clinton said is "ready to go."
Chilean President Michelle Bachelet said the biggest obstacle facing relief efforts is transporting emergency supplies to the earthquake zone.
"We have these things in our country, but how can we get them to the people if we don't have bridges and roads?" said Bachelet.
Most aid deliveries were being flown from -- and to -- airports damaged by the quake; Bachelet has said 230 tonnes of relief was on its way to Concepcion, at the heart of the disaster zone.
Argentina flew in a C-130 military transport plane carrying elements of a field hospital -- including a surgical and intensive care unit, ambulance and laboratory -- three water treatment plants and power generation units. Five more planeloads of aid were to arrive by Tuesday night.
Brazil said it was sending aid and an army field hospital. Peru said it was sending a hospital, doctors and 15 tonnes of blankets and tents. China offered $1 million in humanitarian aid. In Geneva, the International Red Cross asked donors for $6.5 million for water, tents and other relief.
Emergency workers have begun shifting the focus of recovery operations to the country's coastline, where hundreds are feared to have been swept out to sea and drowned by the tsunami that followed the earthquake.
Many of the missing, including tourists camping on the coast, are thought to have been dragged into the Pacific Ocean by the 13-metre-high wave.
Saturday's earthquake struck during the last weekend of the summer holiday, when bars, nightclubs and campgrounds along the coast were packed and many tourists, backpackers, surfers and young travellers are feared dead.
The quake and the riots and looting that followed has shocked Chilean society, which prides itself on the country's wealth and orderliness.
A nation that sent 15 tonnes of food and medicine, a search and rescue team and 20 doctors to Haiti after the earthquake there found itself seeking emergency aid from other countries.
In Lota, a former coal mining town of 30,000 along the heavily damaged coast, Mayor Jorge Venegas said Tuesday that a "psychosis" had taken hold.
A gas station went up in flames, gunfire rattled through the night and residents guarded streets against roaming bands of looters, he told Radio Bio Bio. He said 2,000 homes had been destroyed, thousands were living in the streets and people were wielding guns, iron bars and long sticks to protect their possessions.
"It's a collective hysteria," said Francisco Santa Cruz, 20, an aid worker caring for 56 families in a camp for the newly homeless in San Pedro, across the Bio Bio River from Concepcion, the biggest city in the quake zone.
Catalina Sandoval, a 22-year-old construction engineering student in Concepcion, said she felt "rage, impotence and disillusion" with the lawlessness.
"I'm shocked," Sandoval said. "Not only criminals but well-off people are stealing."
Bachelet was on the defensive against claims that the government's response to the disaster was a failure.
La Tercera, an influential daily, said the looting and violence showed "incomprehensible weakness and slowness" by authorities. El Mercurio, a conservative publication many consider Chile's paper of record, called on President-elect Sebastian Pinera, who takes office March 11, to "restore hope" to Chile.
The government on Monday imposed an 8 p.m-to-noon curfew and sent 14,000 troops to Concepcion and surrounding areas to stop widespread looting -- after virtually every market in the city had been sacked. On Tuesday the curfew was extended to begin at 6 p.m.
"People probably are always going to feel that we could have done things better," Bachelet insisted. "But the reality is given the extent [of destruction], it always will be insufficient."
AIR Worldwide, a Boston-based consulting firm, estimated economic losses could surpass $15 billion and an estimated 2 million people were injured, made homeless or suffered other major losses.
But there were small signs of normalcy in Concepcion Tuesday. The government began distributing food baskets and water, and some gas stations reopened.
Orderly lines formed outside a supermarket -- the only one in the city that hadn't been sacked.
With files from The Associated Press
