Furious relatives of soldiers among the 45 feared frozen to death in the Chilean Andes raged at military officers on Saturday for leaving dozens of ill-equipped teenage recruits out in a blizzard, Reuters reported. While rescuers looked for 29 still missing, grieving and angry families identified 16 bodies recovered on the slopes of the Antuco volcano near the border with Argentina and taken to the army base in Los Angeles in southern Chile. "My son and his companions were abandoned by the officers. They were coming down together in a group and people were falling. The officer just let 28 kids fall and went on to the shelter," said sobbing Gloria Bastias, whose son Jonathan Bustos died in the tragedy on Wednesday. Most of the dead and missing were 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 that blinded and disoriented the group. "I'm convinced they are dead. Only by a miracle will we find any alive," Army Commander in Chief Juan Cheyre said. --more 2147 Local Time 1847 GMT
