As Delivered:
Introductory Remarks
Dr John Chipman, Director General and Chief Executive, IISS
Let me now invite to take the lectern the Minister of Defence of Chile, Jaime Ravinet de la Fuente, who will give us his explanation of how the Chilean armed forces had to cope with the tragedy of the earthquake earlier this year. Thank you, sir.
Humanitarian Assistance and Disaster Relief
Jaime Ravinet de la Fuente, Minister of Defence, Chile
Let me start by thanking, John, the IISS and the Singaporean authorities for such an important invitation for us to attend this Dialogue.
If you think about South America today, especially with the big event starting in South Africa next week – the football World Cup – in your memory will be Brazil and Argentina, because those teams have won the Cup several times, and they are definitely in the top ten. Chile is attending too, but we are not that good; we are not in the top ten. However, in terms of earthquakes and seismic activity, we are definitely in the top five.
50 years ago, our country was a joke, affected by the greatest and largest earthquake in history – 9.5 on the Richter scale. The maximum is 10. Can you imagine what that means? Most of our cities were absolutely devastated, followed by a tsunami that wiped out some villages.
Let me explain to you that, in the Southern Hemisphere, our vacation time is in January and February. 27 February was the last weekend of vacation. We were lucky that most of our cities were half‑empty, but the beaches were full of people. At 3.30am that Saturday, the earth started moving. It reached 8.8 on the Richter scale, but the earthquake was large in its extension, about 700km long. Most of our country was seriously affected. The damage was so vast that 75% of our population was affected. The quake, according to the studies of geologists and seismologist, liberated energy in the collision of the Nazca and the continental plates equivalent to 77,000 Hiroshima bombs. That was the amount of energy liberated by that earthquake in our country.
The damage was huge. About 550 people died, half of whom drowned in the tsunami that followed the quake. It damaged about 370,000 houses; 140,000 were totally destroyed and 230,000 were seriously damaged. 73 hospitals or health centres were affected, as were 4,000 schools and 221 bridges. The cost to the economy of such damage was about US$30 billion. $10 billion was private damages and casualties; another $10 billion was public structures – bridges, highways, schools and hospitals; and $10 billion was the cost of production inactivity in steel smelters, the fishing industry, paper mills and forestry companies. Really the damage was $30 billion, which is equivalent to 17% of our GDP.
Despite the serious affects and consequences of the quake, I would say that the infrastructure of our country and our people behaved well. As I explained before, we have a culture of earthquakes. The seismic regulations for construction are very strict. The cultural behaviour of the people, sometimes without formal instruction, allows them to run from the sea when there is a very big earthquake. Therefore, despite the intensity of the earthquake, we were able to avoid more casualties. The damage was very high, but it is only 17% of our economy.
What was the role of the armed forces in handling that phenomenon? A few hours after the quake, the armed forces were called by the government to accomplish two types of work: firstly, the destruction of many cities started signs of vandalism and looting that was affecting public order. The first measure was to order military forces, under an essential constitutional catastrophe statement, to maintain public order. Normally our armed forces are not allowed to participate in internal public order, but they were allowed to maintain public order in affected areas.
The second task was to start humanitarian relief actions. We received the solidarity of all South American and American countries, and most of Europe. I would say that the international community was with Chile with solidarity. They helped us quite a lot. Our forces started moving 20,000 people, most of our Jeeps, trucks, aircraft and helicopters to form a large, intensive bridge to reach the affected areas. They were able to transport food, water, shelters, tents and medical assistance. The bridge was over water, land and air, and most of 150,000 tonnes was mobilised and loaded in the affected areas. We installed and deployed military healthcare centres in the affected areas, with field hospitals to attend to people.
That lasted about one month from February 27th to March 31st. Starting on April 1st the military were assigned to the second stage of the job, which was the reconstruction. Since that date they have been building and installing 46,000 prefabricated, emergency houses for the people affected. They have used equipment to remove more than 130,000 cubic metres of debris. They have repaired the bridges.
Critically, we had about 4,000 schools affected. The government’s aim was to have no child without a school place at the end of April. We met that aim and today we have full school attendance, part of the return to normality.
The sluggish economy has meant there has been a rise in joblessness and so the army’s engineering corps has hired civilians to help in the clear up and reconstruction. Today we have 20,000 people working under the army’s engineering corps in each town and village, earning money to survive and at the same time helping in the return to normality. I believe this is a very important initiative and it is the first time we have done anything like this. I believe this approach could help other countries.
Finally, what were the lessons from such a big earthquake and tsunami? Firstly, our emergency systems collapsed because the number of casualties was so large and there were no communications apart from satellite phones. From this we have learned we need to create a national emergency hierarchy, in which all sectors of government, utility companies and the army must be represented and to have clear protocols and rules for such situations. Second, all the communication systems must be backed up twice or three times by alternative systems to enable communication to take place under such conditions. Third, we need to form an army task force trained to handle emergencies, which can be deployed to affected areas. We would like to make that task force available not only within Latin America, but also across the Asia‑Pacific rim if necessary.
Dr John Chipman
Minister, thank you very much for that moving account of the extraordinary crisis your armed forces had to deal with and also for your intriguing revelation that you hired 20,000 civilians within the engineering corps to both assist an also give provide hem personal subsistence during this difficult time. You concluded with the act that –once you have formed your emergency task force – you could put that at the disposal of other countries who might benefit from it, including this region.
