Quake, tsunami alert hit Chile as new leader sworn

Pinera, 60, inherited the presidency from Michelle Bachelet and now faces the huge challenge of rebuilding the nation.

SANTIAGO, March 12, 2010 (AFP) - Strong aftershocks and a tsunami alert rattled nerves in Chile Thursday, as rightwing billionaire Sebastian Pinera was sworn in as the new president of the quake-hit nation.

"We're going to rebuild Chile together, stone by stone, brick by brick," Pinera pledged in his first speech as president only hours after his inauguration and a 6.9-magnitude aftershock that sent people scrambling.

"In some way, we are all survivors of this tragedy," Pinera told a crowd that gathered outside the La Moneda presidential palace in Santiago a short time after being sworn in.

Thursday's tremors, the strongest since February's massive 8.8-magnitude quake, triggered an alert which lasted four hours on parts of the mainland and caused panic at the parliament in the coastal city of Valparaiso where Pinera was inaugurated earlier in the day.

Many guests, including seven Latin American heads of state, were visibly shaken, and the parliament was urgently evacuated straight after the ceremony.

The aftershocks in central areas peaked at a magnitude of 6.9, the strongest in a wave of more than 250 which have shaken Chile since the February 27 quake.

That earthquake sparked a killer tsunami and left almost 500 confirmed dead and some two million people affected.

No damage or injured were reported Thursday, but authorities, who had been criticized for their slow response after the first quake, issued a tsunami alert which was later lifted on land but maintained for Easter Island.

Pinera, 60, inherited the presidency from widely-popular leftwing leader Michelle Bachelet and faces the huge challenge of rebuilding the nation.

He made an earlier visit was to the ravaged coastal town of Constitucion, where he offered 80-dollar vouchers to children of poor families to help ease post-quake recovery.

Pinera said the vouchers would benefit some 4.2 million children, and that he would propose a law to congress on Friday to back the measure, which he hoped would be applied by early April.

Joined by several ministers, he also placed a floral tribute at a spot where huge waves swept up from the sea on February 27.

His January victory spelled an end to the ruling left-wing coalition that has governed Chile since the end of General Augusto Pinochet's dictatorship 20 years ago.

The Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) made available 460 million dollars in loans for Chile's reconstruction efforts, bank officials said Thursday.

Crowds waved as they bid goodbye to Bachelet, known to some as the "mother" of Chileans, at the La Moneda Palace.

Satirical newspaper The Clinic headlined its backpage with the title, "Don't go, mum," while banners called for the nation's first female leader to stand for president again in 2014 elections.

Pinera, a self-proclaimed centrist, has promised he will build on the policies practiced by his predecessor, rather than replace them.

After vowing austerity during his campaign, he is now expected to ramp up spending, borrow abroad and dip into savings from export revenues from the key copper mining industry.