Tocopilla: Government to leave all earthquake victims with houses

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SANTIAGO.- After three days in Tocopilla, Police Under Secretary and campaigning minister, Javiera Blanco, gave a positive evaluation of the work and aid being administered in the zone affected by last week's earthquake and revealed advances being made regarding plans for reconstruction in the zone.

According to indications made by Blanco, right now all of the efforts are concentrated on the construction of makeshift houses for the most affected families in Tocopilla, Sierra Gorda and María Elena. "On Tuesday we had 49 emergency shelters and we doubled them from one day to the next", said Blanco during an interview with Radio Cooperativa, allowing her to hand over 160 makeshift homes.

The government hopes to have 2,500 emergency houses ready by the 24th of December.

In order to build permanent housing, the Police Under Secretary stated that homes in very bad state will first be demolished in order to "work hard on constructing the new houses".

Blanco clarified that financing for this task will be supplied through subsidies.