'No hope of finding survivors'

2005-05-23 11:33

Los Angeles - Battling a new wave of bad weather, patrols took to the mountains near the dormant Antuco volcano and recovered the bodies of five more soldiers who died in a snowstorm that resulted in Chile's worst peacetime military disaster in nearly 80 years.

Nineteen soldiers remain missing following Wednesday's snowstorm, but there was almost no hope of finding any survivors. So far, the bodies of 26 soldiers have been recovered, army chief General Juan Emilio Cheyre reported.

About 150 military and police mountain experts worked all day as snow fell and winds reached up to 80km/h. As expected, the rescue patrols found only bodies, no survivors.

"I have repeated I am convinced they are all dead," Cheyre said as he saw the patrols depart. "Only a major miracle would allow us to find one survivor."

"But we will not give up until we have recovered all of our men," he added.

General Alfredo Ewing, who heads the patrols in the field, said continuing the search "is a duty, a moral duty to ourselves, to the families, to the army".

Military officers said even recovering all the bodies would be an extremely difficult and uncertain task.

Grim recovery task

Meanwhile, several of the bodies that had been found earlier were buried on Sunday.

The soldiers, mainly aged 18 and 19, had just begun a year's mandatory service. They were caught early on Wednesday in what authorities described as the worst snowstorm to hit this area in three decades, as they returned from a mountain drill.

The military expects the death toll will reach 45 once all the bodies have been recovered, making it the worst peacetime military disaster in Chile since 1927 when 12 military academy cadets died and scores were wounded in a train crash in the Andes.

On Sunday, the military closed the regiment's gymnasium where for three days relatives of the missing soldiers had desperately awaited news of their loved ones. Journalists were also made to leave.

There was no explanation, but apparently the military wanted to avoid a repeat of recent scenes when relatives of the missing and dead soldiers cursed and shouted at some officers, accusing them of hiding information.

Cheyre admitted confusion and "failure in the system of information", but denied anything was being hidden from the families.

Cheyre removed from their posts the two top commanders of Mountain Regiment Nr 17 and the officer in charge of the company caught in the storm.

In addition, he ordered the military courts to investigate whether the officers committed a crime, were negligent or failed to carry out their military duties. If the latter, they could be sentenced to prison terms ranging from three months to two years.

- AP