Military Is Blamed for Deaths in Chile Storm

Furious relatives of nearly four dozen soldiers believed to have frozen to death in the Chilean Andes raged at military officers Saturday for leading dozens of ill-equipped teenage recruits into a blizzard.

While rescuers scoured the snow-shrouded Antuco volcano for 24 young soldiers still missing, grieving families identified the 21 bodies recovered so far.

“My son and his companions were abandoned by the officers. They were coming down together in a group and people were falling. The officer just let 28 kids fall and went on to the shelter,” said Gloria Bastias, whose son Jonathan Bustos died Wednesday.

Most of the dead and missing soldiers were teenage recruits who had enlisted a month ago and went into the mountains on a basic training exercise without adequate gear for the early-winter snowstorm that blinded and disoriented the group.

While hundreds of mourners held a wake for the dead in a chapel at the army base in Los Angeles in southern Chile, chaos and joy filled a nearby gymnasium. There families were reunited with 112 soldiers and officers who were evacuated by helicopter from a mountain shelter, where they had been trapped for four days.

“We are all sad for those Chilean young men who died on the mountain,” said President Ricardo Lagos, who flew to Los Angeles to follow search operations.

The army chief has dismissed several officers over the incident and ordered an internal military investigation as well as a civilian one.