Word: frei
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Rain of Stone. The time was 12:33 on a bright, warm Sunday afternoon. President Eduardo Frei was watching an air show outside Santiago when an invisible force seemed to seize and shake him. In Santiago's Hipodromo, 3,000 racing fans fled in panic as the grandstand roof heaved and cracked. Terrified swimmers in the open-air pool of the Hotel Carrera watched the water suddenly leap in foot-high waves. Three blocks away, cornices peeled off the Supreme Court and Congress buildings and rained down on the street...
...Rebuild. President Frei ordered army units into stricken areas with bulldozers, food and clothes. A tent village sprang up outside El Cobre, and the afternoon after the quake Frei himself arrived. "This is terrible, terrible," he repeated. "Señor Presidente, help us," pleaded one miner. "That is why I am here," said Frei, "to be with you." Army engineers dug for bodies, found...
...week's end the country's death toll was approaching 300. Some 18,000 people were homeless, and the total damage was estimated at between $50 million and $100 million. With his ministers, Frei mapped out relief and reconstruction programs, ordered an inquiry to determine whether the mining company or government inspectors were guilty of negligence in permitting the miners to live at the base of the El Cobre...
...bigger question was what 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...
...words," said President Frei, "could better sum up the impression of this night than your voices shouting 'Viva Chile! Viva Chile!' We accept this mandate as a great call to responsibility. The party that triumphed is great, but we must never forget that Chile is greater still, and that the government, political parties and men do not exist to serve one government or one man. Rather they exist to serve the country and all Chileans...