Chile declares state of emergency amid riots

Santiago and other Chilean cities have been engulfed by several days of rioting as protests over an increase in public transport costs prompted President Sebastian Pinera to declare a state of emergency. Civil protests are taking place across several cities in Chile, in response to the Metro de Santiago subway's recent price hikes. The protests began in the capital, Santiago, as a coordinated fare evasion campaign by secondary school students, leading to spontaneous takeovers of the city's main train stations and open confrontations with the national police (Carabineros). On 18 October, the situation escalated as organized bands of protesters rose in rebellion across the city, seizing many terminals of the Santiago Metro network (part of Red) and disabling them with extensive infrastructure damage. The Metro network was disabled in its entirety.

On 18 October, President of Chile Sebastián Piñera announced a state of emergency, authorizing the deployment of Chilean Army forces across the main regions to enforce order and crack down on the destruction of public property, and invoked before the courts the Ley de Seguridad del Estado ("State Security Law") against dozens of detainees. A curfew was declared on 19 October in the Greater Santiago area, for the first time since 1987, at the end of the Pinochet dictatorship. Protests and riots have expanded to other cities, including Concepción, San Antonio and Valparaíso. The state of emergency was extended to the Concepción Province, all Valparaíso Region (except Easter Island and Juan Fernández Archipelago) and the cities of Antofagasta, Coquimbo, Iquique, La Serena, Rancagua and Valdivia.