In Chile, Carmen Fernandez, the head of the emergency management agency, has resigned following the agency's slow response to last month's earthquake and tsunami. Ms Fernandez had admitted earlier that the agency had communication problems and had not responded properly to the disaster.

She is the second high-ranking official in Chile who has lost her job in connection with the earthquake. Last week Chilean President Michelle Bachelet dismissed the head of the navy's oceanography service for his failure to sound the tsunami alarm.

Official figures estimate that the Chilean disaster has cost almost 500 people their lives, most of them died as a result of the tsunami. Many people are still missing.

In spite of the extensive criticism of the slow government response to the earthquake, an opinion poll shows that 84 percent of Chileans still have faith in President Bachelet.

However, Michelle Bachelet's four-year-term as president ends. The conservative businessman Sebastián Piñera will be sworn in as new president in the coastal city of Valparaiso.