Chile quake telethon raises more than $87 mn

Santiago, Mar 19 (EFE).- The March 5-6 telethon organized to collect money for the 800,000 Chileans injured or displaced by last month's devastating earthquake brought in more than $87 million, the press said Friday.

Nearly 56 percent of the total came from businesses.

The final sum exceeded by more than 50 percent the amount announced at the end of the 27-hour "Chile Helps Chile" program, hosted by popular television personality Mario "Don Francisco" Kreutzberger.

The amount also tripled the organizers' original goal, which they set at just under $30 million.

Roughly a third of the donations are earmarked for the charity Un Techo para Chile (A Roof for Chile), which will build 20,000 wooden cabins in the areas hardest hit by the magnitude-8.8 earthquake.

The rest of the money will be administered by a new commission created by the telethon organizers with the mission of rebuilding schools knocked down by the temblor in the affected regions.

Chilean President Sebastian Piñera said Thursday that 2,750 schools are unusable, affecting nearly 1 million students.

Piñera took office March 11 and Friday brought the first official figures from the new administration on casualties and damage from the quake that struck south-central Chile.

Interior Minister Rodrigo Hinzpeter put the number of confirmed deaths from the temblor and subsequent tsunami at 452, down 45 from the final bulletin issued last week by the Michelle Bachelet administration.

Ninety-six other people remain missing and unaccounted for, the minister said.

Roughly 800,000 people were injured or forced from their homes, according to Hinzpeter, while the Bachelet government had cited a figure of 2 million hurt or displaced.

The number of victims and the method of counting them has changed over the last few weeks.

On March 3, then-Interior Secretary Patricio Rosende said that there were 802 fatalities, but five days later the number of confirmed dead was said to be 497.

Hinzpeter estimated Friday that 200,000 homes were destroyed.

In the case of missing persons, the government sent a bill to Congress on Thursday aimed at reducing from a year to 90 days the period of time family members will have to wait for them to be declared dead.

Justice Minister Felipe Bulnes said that the measure will let relatives of missing persons come into their inheritances, collect on life insurance policies and apply for pensions.