Soprole has a head office in Santiago, four manufacturing sites at San Bernardo, Los Angeles, Osorno, and Los Lagos, nine regional distribution centres, and eight transport centres around the country.

Our first priority following the earthquake has been to make contact with all of our people and to make sure they are safe.

Of our 1800 people in Chile we have been unable to make contact with 41 staff in the area of Concepcion, the city worst affected by earthquake damage.

We are still hopeful all of them are safe, but it is going to take some time before we are able to confirm this.

Making contact with our people in Concepcion remains difficult as the city is on emergency status and is under military control. A curfew is in place and there is very limited movement of people. Communications have also been disrupted.

We have also set up a 24 hour hotline that employees can contact and we have radio stations broadcasting the hotline number. But again we are reliant on the communications being up and running.

The Soprole head office in Santiago is open and our sites at Osorno, Los Lagos and San Bernardo are operating on a restricted basis. Their ongoing operation is still dependent on infrastructure issues, such as staff being able to get to work, regular power and fuel supply, and raw materials being able to get through to the sites.

Los Angeles is still subject to assessment and the office and depot in Conception remains closed.

This advisory will be updated as the situation changes.