IQUIQUE, Chile — Chilean officials said Friday that water, fuel, electricity and other essential services are being re-established three days after a powerful magnitude-8.2 earthquake and hundreds of aftershocks that have rattled the country’s far northern regions. But pockets of poor people living in substandard housing were still suffering the brunt of the disaster.

The government also issued a three-month health alert for the quake-hit regions. It grants officials more resources to avoid the spread of infectious diseases by coping with trash and contaminated water from rotting fish in port cities.

Additional Photos

Debris from a magnitude-8.2 quake covers a car Friday in Iquique, Chile. The city remained largely peaceful. The Associated Press

“There will not be any fuel supply problems in any of the regions affected by the quake and drinking water services are being re-established,” presidential spokesman Alvaro Elizalde told reporters in the capital, Santiago, after President Bachelet and her Cabinet met to discuss the emergency.

“Water connection has reached a relatively high point, but we still have a way to go so that all cities can count on these basic services.”

Water, power and other basic services had yet to return to Alto Hospicio, a poor area in the hills above Iquique that was one of the worst-hit by the quake, which killed six people in all. About 2,600 homes were damaged there and the main road connecting it to Iquique has been blocked by debris after massive landslides.

In Iquique, a port city of nearly 200,000 people, small-scale fishermen continued to recover the little that was left from boats damaged by quake-spawned waves and called for government help.

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