Word: chiles
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Dates: during 1960-1969
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Inevitably, less effort and less time have gone into the development of younger democracies. Latin America boasts half a dozen democratic regimes-at the moment. The stablest are Chile, with more than 40 years of fairly literate, honest politics, and Costa Rica. The others are Peru, Venezuela, Colombia and Uruguay, and they are all beset in varying degrees by violence and the threat of periodic coups. But at least at present, their democratic machinery is more or less intact...
...fully grown or pacified by time. Still-active volcanoes pock the spiny range running the length of western South America. Avalanches rumble down constantly from the 20,000-ft. peaks. And beneath the earth's jagged crust, fantastic forces grind and churn, producing violent earthquakes-most often in Chile. Of the thousands of big and little tremors recorded around the world each year, about 15% occur in Chile. One quake in 1906 took 3,000 lives. Another in 1939 left 30,000 dead. Five years ago, still another killed 5,000 people. Last week Chile had the shakes again...
...Richter scale (v. 8.5 for the 1960 quake), and for two hours it set seismographs squiggling as far away as central Italy, 7,500 miles to the east. Reports from Santiago told of 200 houses heavily damaged; amazingly, only four people were dead and ten injured. In Valparaiso, Chile's major seaport, close to 30% of the buildings were damaged with 15 persons killed. Throughout the central part of the country, water mains burst, buildings collapsed, and whole towns seemed to dance...
...effect the quake would have on Frei's urgently needed reform program in the areas of land, housing, school and industrial development. In new elections last month, Frei's Christian Democrats won an absolute majority in the Chamber of Deputies and planned a full-scale assault on Chile's ills. They still plan to proceed despite the added burden of digging out from the earthquake...
President Johnson immediately offered U.S. assistance, and Frei responded with a request for "flour, condensed milk for children, and vehicles to transport water." Yet Chile's President did not ask-or expect-a massive infusion of emergency funds. He intends to float a special bond issue at home to finance reconstruction, thus leaving the $1 billion national budget intact. "We cannot appeal to the world every four years to help us lift ourselves from the ground," he said. "We Chileans ourselves will raise the towns that were destroyed...