IOM Chile and local NGO partners this week travelled to communities
with large migrant populations in the Santiago metropolitan area to
assess needs and provide emergency relief items, including food.

To date IOM and its partners have identified 1,294 people,
including 175 minors, severely affected by the quake. These include
migrants and local people living in shared accommodation or on the
same street in the Santiago Centro area. Their needs include
temporary shelter, food and non-food emergency relief items.

All of the families interviewed by IOM and its partners have
confirmed that their homes were either completely destroyed or are
uninhabitable.  But they refuse to be relocated to emergency
shelters for fear of losing the few belongings they managed to
salvage from the ruins of their houses.

The Santiago Centro area was one of the most severely damaged in
the capital due to poor construction and the state of disrepair of
old buildings shared by many families.

Although the quake’s epicentre was located in the Maule
and Bio Bio regions south of Santiago, poor neighbourhoods in the
capital’s metropolitan area experienced major damage and loss
of life. 

Official figures for Santiago show 38 people dead, 700 injured,
6,700 in need of emergency assistance and 1.5 million
affected.  There are some 500,000 people without electricity
and over 324,000 without water.

According to the Peruvian consulate, 700 of its nationals are in
need of assistance in Santiago and another 500 in Concepción
– the city closest to the epicentre. Peru has already
provided air transport for 180 of its nationals who asked for help
to return to their country.

IOM is also ready to provide transport assistance to people
severely affected by the disaster who voluntarily want to return
home to their countries of origin.

For more information, please contact:

Viviana Mellado

IOM Santiago

Tel: +56 2 2746713

E-mail: "mailto:vmellado@iom.int" target="_blank" title=
"">vmellado@iom.int