A series of strong aftershocks rattled central Chile minutes before conservative Pinera was sworn in at Congress in the port city of Valparaiso, as Latin American presidents and other dignitaries looked nervously at the ceiling.
Workers in the capital briefly evacuated swaying office towers and took refuge in the streets.
Yesterday’s aftershocks were an unsettling reminder of the earthquake that killed nearly 500 people and damaged infrastructure across much of south-central Chile, threatening Pinera’s election pledges to boost economic growth to 6 per cent a year and to create a million jobs.
In Constitucion, heavily damaged in the 8.8-magnitude quake on Feb 27, residents scrambled for the hills yesterday after the navy issued a tsunami alert, but it was later called off.
Pinera rushed off to the quake zone after swearing in, leaving behind the presidents who attended his inauguration.
“I felt that my duty was to be here in Constitucion,” he said, dressed in a red zip-up-jacket, in the coastal city known for its fishing and forestry industry.
The new president has ordered his interior minister to personally oversee the recovery work of state emergency office Onemi, heavily criticized for its handling of the earthquake and ensuing tsunamis that devastated coastal villages.
Chileans hope that Pinera, a Harvard-trained economist, can use his business acumen to help one of Latin America’s most stable economies rebound from the devastating earthquake.
“The main challenge is to identify priorities to swiftly start the reconstruction effort. That will be the key variable that will be evaluated during his administration,” said Alberto Ramos, senior economist with Goldman Sachs in New York.
“This could be the Katrina of President Pinera … in terms of how the population perceives the relief and reconstruction effort,” he said, referring to the powerful hurricane that struck New Orleans in 2005. The slow relief effort damaged US President George W. Bush’s popularity.
While mines were mostly unscathed in the world’s top copper producer, the February quake seriously damaged Chile’s key wine, fish and paper pulp industries.
Some analysts see the damage shaving 0.5 to 2.0 percentage points off this year’s economic growth, while others are holding to their original GDP forecasts of around 5 percent.
State-owned copper company Codelco, the world’s biggest copper miner, said none of its mines were damaged in Thursday’s aftershocks.One, a powerful magnitude 6.9 about 124 km (80 miles) south-west of the capital, was nearly as powerful as the quake that devastated Haiti in January.
Pinera, a 60-year-old former senator who made a fortune on a credit cards business and an airline, ranks No. 437 on Forbes’ richest list, which estimates his fortune at $2.2 billion.
