Aid pledges pour into quake-hit Chile

Aid pledges have poured into Chile from around the world after the government made its first requests for help as the rising death toll from the devastating earthquake reached 723.

Communication equipment and other aid was set to arrive Tuesday after President Michelle Bachelet requested mobile bridges, field hospitals, satellite phones, electrical generators, disaster assessment teams, water purification systems, field kitchens and restaurants, UN officials said.

Some two million Chileans, or one eighth of the entire population, are estimated to have been affected by Saturday's massive temblor, which along with an Ecuador quake in 1906 is the seventh most powerful on record.

Chilean Foreign Minister Mariano Fernandez said after conferring with Bachelet that dozens of satellite phones for quake-hit areas were on their way.

He told a press conference that foreign nations were also sending mobile bridges and field hospitals.

US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, who flies into the Chilean capital Tuesday, said she would bring along 20 satellite telephones and a technician. Clinton, who was in Montevideo for Monday's inauguration of Uruguayan President Jose Mujica, said US search and rescue teams were also on standby, but Washington was ramping up its initial assistance.

"Chile has requested our help in terms of providing a field hospital, communications support, and water purification systems. And so we are mobilizing those capabilities as we speak and will be moving those down to Chile as quickly as possible," State Department spokesman Philip Crowley told reporters in Washington.

Australia, which along with most of the Pacific was placed on tsunami alert after the huge quake, pledged 4.5 million US dollars in emergency and reconstruction aid.

The European Union meanwhile said it was ready to deploy "an assessing mission" to look at structural damage to hospitals, schools and other facilities, its foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton said from Brussels.

The European Commission has already approved three million euros (four million dollars) in emergency aid for Chile, while Japan pledged three million and China one million.

Chile's neighbors also responded.

Argentina said it would dispatch 54 health personnel and a field hospital, four water treatment systems and electrical systems.

Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva was the first foreign leader to visit quake-hit Chile on Monday.

Bolivia announced it was sending 60 tonnes of humanitarian aid and an unspecified amount of drinking water.

 SANTIAGO, AFP