CONCEPCION - Police fired tear gas and imposed an overnight curfew to control looters who sacked virtually every market in this hard-hit city as Chile's earthquake toll surpassed 700. President Michelle Bachelet promised imminent deliveries of food, water and shelter for thousands living on the streets. We are confronting an emergency without parallel in Chile's history," Bachelet declared Sunday, a day after the magnitude-8.8 quake ��" one of the biggest in centuries" killed at least 708 people and destroyed or badly damaged 500,000 homes. Bachelet said "a growing number" of people were recorded as missing. In Concepcion, 320 miles (515 kilometers) south of Santiago, firefighters pulling survivors from a toppled apartment building 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. Ingenious looters used long tubes of bamboo and plastic to siphon gasoline from underground tanks at a closed gasoline station. Eduardo Aundez, a Spanish professor, watched with disgust as a soldier patiently waited for looters to rummage through a downtown store, then lobbed two tear gas canisters into the rubble to get them out.
