At least 41 soldiers were feared dead as rescuers searched a fourth day for mostly teenage troops lost in a blizzard during a military exercise in the Andes.
Grieving families began to identify the 14 bodies that had been found and brought to an army base in the southern Chilean city of Los Angeles. Many bitterly blamed the army for the deaths on the Antuco volcano near the border with Argentina.
Rescuers were still searching for 27 still missing, most of them teenage draftees who enlisted just one month ago and went into the mountains on a basic training exercise without gear for the early-winter snow storm.
"I'm convinced they are dead," Army Commander in Chief Juan Cheyre said. He dismissed a handful of officers over the incident and ordered an internal military investigation as well as a civilian one. The weather improved after several days of snow, and helicopters were bringing off the mountain the 112 survivors who had been trapped in a shelter since Wednesday.
President Ricardo Lagos declared three days of national mourning and was expected to travel to the area after giving his annual address to Congress this morning. At least one radio station interrupted his speech to read out the names of the missing troops.
Mr Cheyre, who went part way up the mountain, 360 miles (600 km) southeast of Santiago, to bring down the first body, blamed the tragedy on officers who ordered hundreds of soldiers on an annual mountain drill to leave shelter during the storm.
"There was negligence and imprudence," he said.
The search began on Wednesday after more than 400 members of a regiment from a base in Los Angeles were hit by the storm. Hundreds of troops were able to hike out or hole up in shelters, but low temperatures and limited visibility in falling snow hampered the search.
Defense Minister Jaime Ravinet said only one company in the regiment had enough protective gear for a storm.
Families of the missing and local media questioned whether the army heeded weather reports ahead of the yearly exercise at the beginning of the Southern Hemisphere winter.