Picture of devastation deepens by the day in Chile

Life seems almost back to normal in the Chilean capital three days after one of the most powerful quakes in recorded history, but south of Santiago the picture of devastation deepens by the day.

As tanks and armored vehicles rumble south along the country's fractured main highway to stop armed gangs looting shops and homes in the port city of Concepcion from Monday under an extended 8:00 pm to noon curfew shell-shocked Chileans ramble amid ruins in other cities like Talca.

Little is left of the central church in this city, 300 kilometers (186 miles) south of the capital. The roof and spire have melted around the walls. Bands of stray dogs wander looking for food. People sit in tiny tents on dusty footpaths or parking lots.

Like other country towns, the old heart of Talca crumbled in minutes when the 8.8-magnitude quake struck early Saturday.

In street after street, once-picturesque homes built of mud-and-straw "adobe," some a century old, collapsed to the ground. Up to 95 people were reported dead here.

There is little to no electricity, water supplies are slowly returning for the 200,000 residents, and most shops remain closed.

"We're just so tired," said an old man holding onto a walking stick. "And every day there are aftershocks."

Lack of food and water are behind the savage rioting in Concepcion that drove President Michelle Bachelet to dispatch a massive 7,000 troops to that city Monday to enforce an unprecedentedly harsh curfew.

"We need troops, it's chaos here, people are too scared to go out," said Mayor Carolina Van Ristenberger.

The violence upset radio reporters, on 24-hour quake watch since the disaster struck.

"I cannot believe this is happening in our country. What will the world say? This vandalism, delinquency, this is the worst of us," one said on national radio.

But as television news offered wall-to-wall coverage of shattered villages, supermarket looters and washed-out coastal towns, many Chileans put up their hands to offer help, showing another face of the catastrophe.

In Curico, 200 kilometers (124 miles) south of Santiago, a local radio station beat the power black-out by installing a generator to ring in aid for the homeless and the hungry.

"There's a groundswell of generosity," said Churro Rojas, a newsreader for Radio Tropical Latina. "People are banding together to help."

Hauling chocolate cakes, bottles of mineral water, spare clothes and big bags of flour, scores of locals converged on a back street where almost all the adobe homes had collapsed, filling 90 large trucks with donations.

"We have no law and order problems here," said Inspector Sergio Astorga of the Chilean Crime Investigation Department (PDI). "Just look at this!"

Aid was slow in getting to country and coastal villages, partly due to the damage done to roads. By-passes were buckled and bridges snapped over ravines and rivers all along the country's four-lane north-south highway.

But in sunny summery Santiago on Monday morning, Starbucks was doing brisk business, office workers were sitting chatting on benches in the shade of trees and even the underground rail service was back on track.

In the best hotels in town, the rich and idle crowded lobbies, forced to extend their stays due to the closure of the international airport, where the quake smashed through passenger halls and flattened check-in counters.

The force of the quake was felt hundreds of kilometers away across the border in the Argentine town of Mendoza.

TALCA, AFP