国际英语新闻：Chile reduces quake death toll to 452; only 359 confirmed

SANTIAGO, March 19 (Xinhua) -- Chile's government has reduced the death toll of the Feb. 27 earthquake to 452 from over 500 previously estimated, with 359 people identified as having died as a direct result of the disaster, Chilean Interior Minister Rodrigo Hinzpeter said on Friday.

Hinzpeter said that still there are 96 cases of missing people and 800,000 victims in the affected zones. He also said that there are 200,000 destroyed houses and 40,000 schools with grave structural damages, which affects one million students in the country.

"We believe that our methods represent a responsible working method, because each number represents a person and a family," said Rodrigo Ubilla, the junior interior minister with special responsibility for the quake, at a broadcast press conference. "We do not want to play with the pain suffered by Chilean families."

He said that 359 people have been identified and family members have received death certificates for them. Another 77 are close to a clear identification, but awaiting paperwork from the civil registry. Nine bodies have proved very difficult to identify, although it is clear the disaster is the cause of death. Finally, 17 people died in the days shortly after the quake, but authorities doubt that the quake or the tsunami that followed it are the cause.

Chile's previous government, which left office eight days ago, had at one stage reported up to 800 dead, but reduced the number 10 days after the quake to just over 200 after realizing that some of the bodies had been counted twice. On Thursday, Chilean police estimated that the final toll could reach 630, saying that close to 500 had been identified and a further 130 people remain missing.

On Friday, Ubilla said that the government would not publish an estimate of those missing because they are far more likely to be inaccurate than confirmed deaths. The full list of those whose death certificates had been issued to their families will be published on the Interior Ministry's web site on Friday, he added.

The quake, which measured 8.8 degrees on the Richter scale, made 500,000 people homeless. Sebastian Pinera, who has been president for eight days, estimated the cost of reconstruction at around 30 billion U.S. dollars.