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Source: Reuters -
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A prolonged aftershock has shaken buildings in Chile's capital city of Santiago, according to Reuters witnesses.
It was the latest in a flurry of smaller tremors to hit the country in the wake of last week's massive 8.8-magnitude quake .
Earlier, a strong 5.9-magnitude aftershock off of the Chilean coast sparked panic in the southern-central town of Concepcion.
Emergency officials said there was no risk of a tsunami hitting the area but scared residents fled to higher ground.
The initial earthquake killed more than 800 people and caused widespread devastation in the South American country.
It also set off a roaring tsunami a few hours later that killed many along the coastline and sparked a world-wide tsunami warning , including in New Zealand.
Chileans urged to help reconstruction
The government has raised the official death toll to 802 and Chile's President Michelle Bachelet has warned to could rise in coming days.
Bachelet has called on Chileans to rally around relief and
reconstruction efforts, deflecting criticism that her government
was slow to respond to the quake.
With tensions still running high in the disaster area, an emotional
Bachelet has urged the population to remain calm in the face of
Chile's worst natural disaster in 50 years.
She has also sought to allay concerns of potential food and fuel
shortages.
"There is enough food and therefore we must remain calm. There is
also enough fuel, there is no risk of shortages," she said in a
nationally televised speech.
Hours later, she took her message to the country's radio waves, calling on Chileans to band together to rebuild what has long been one of Latin America's most stable economies.
"Be confident ... Chile is going to stand on its feet again," Bachelet, a popular president who is in her last days in office, said as she broke into tears.
An 18-hour curfew remain in place in Concepcion, Chile's
second-biggest city, and 14,000 troops are patrolling the
streets in hard-hit areas to keep order and oversee aid
distribution.
Military trucks and helicopters have delivered food and water to
devastated areas, while rescue crews searched coastal hamlets north
of Concepcion for any survivors trapped in the debris.
In Constitucion, one of several coastal villages nearly wiped out
by the quake and tsunami, some reports have put the number of
missing as high as 500.
The town, with a population of about 40,000, accounts for almost half of the official death toll.
Bachelet has asked Chileans to avoid stockpiling food so supplies could be distributed fairly.
But the plea has fallen on deaf ears in Constitucion, where
prices for foodstuffs such as flour and sugar have skyrocketed
because of hoarding and looting.
Chilean emergency officials and the military blamed each other for
not clearly warning coastal villages of tsunamis, angering
survivors who lost relatives and friends in the massive waves that
followed the quake.
"People died because of a lack of information," says Valder Vera, a survivor in Dichato, a small fishing village north of Concepcion that was destroyed.
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