CONCEPCION, Chile (AP) - Security forces said today they arrested dozens of people for violating curfew after looters sacked virtually every market in this hard-hit city and Chile's earthquake toll surpassed 700. President Michelle Bachelet promised imminent deliveries of food, water and shelter for thousands living on the streets.

The governor of the Concepcion region, Jaime Toha, said troops and police arrested 55 people overnight for violating a curfew imposed to halt looting.

Some coastal towns just to the north of Concepcion were almost obliterated, first shaken by the quake, then slammed by a tsunami that lifted whole houses and carried them inland and that reduced others to piles of sticks.

Defense Minister Francisco Vidal acknowledged the navy made a mistake by not immediately activating a tsunami warning after the quake hit before dawn Saturday. Port captains in several coastal towns did, saving what Vidal called hundreds of lives. Thirty minutes passed between the quake and a wave that inundated coastal towns.

In Concepcion itself, firefighters were seeking survivors in a toppled apartment building, a day after they had to pause because of tear gas fired at looters who wheeled away everything from microwave ovens to canned milk at a damaged supermarket across the street.




Looters even carted off pieces of a copper statue of South American independence fighter Bernardo O'Higgins next to a justice building.