Kristalina Georgieva attended the ceremony during a trip to inspect EU relief operations in areas of the South American country hit by last month's massive earthquake. The EU has mobilised €3m in aid and deployed experts to coordinate distribution of the supplies.

Minutes before President Sebastián Piñera was to be sworn in at the Chilean parliament in the central city of Valparaiso, a major aftershock struck the coast, followed by two others over the next half hour. Yet no one ran for the exits and Mr. Piñera continued to greet world leaders as if nothing had happened. In her blog, the commissioner attributes the absence of panic to confidence in the high construction standards in this earthquake-prone country.

The quake on 27 February - 8.8 on the Richter scale - was one of the biggest on record, but the death toll was relatively low - around 500 people. Most were victims of the ensuing tsunami. Although many buildings were heavily damaged, most did not collapse.

Chile has requested international help in the form of mechanical bridges, field hospitals, satellite telephones, salt-water purification systems, shelter and field kitchens.

EU aid is being distributed with help from four agencies: Telecoms Without Borders, the Pan-American Health Organisation and the Spanish and German branches of the Red Cross.

The EU has four humanitarian experts and a six-person civil protection team on the ground in Chile.

A number of member countries have supplemented EU assistance with contributions of their own. Spain, Germany and France have also sent experts to the region.

Their contributions were coordinated by the EU's monitoring and information centre in Brussels, which is staffed around the clock.