Chile's new President Sebastian Pinera on Thursday appointed Vicente Nunez, a 39-year-old civil engineer, to head the National Emergency Office (Onemi), local radio reported.

Pinera, who took office just hours ago, made the announcement from Rancagua, the capital of O'Higgins Region, during an inspection tour in the aftermath of a series of strong earthquakes that hit the region on Thursday morning.

The strongest of the quakes, believed to be the aftershocks of an 8.8-magnitude temblor that rocked the country on Feb. 27, measured 7.2 on the Richter scale. Two others also measured above 6.

The Onemi's previous chief, former journalist Carmen Fernandez, resigned on Tuesday after more than one week of fierce criticism from the public and media. Her agency has been blamed for slow response and poor performance in the wake of the February tremor, which killed at least 497 people.

Before boarding a helicopter headed for the quake-affected region, Pinera told broadcasters that he plans to send a bill to the legislature demanding 40,000 pesos (around 80 U.S. dollars) for every Chilean family that has one child receiving some kind of welfare payment from the government.

"In this way we will reach more than 4.2 million people in the nation, millions of Chileans that are in need," Pinera said. "We are going to do all we can to fulfill the government program. I want Chileans to have faith that they will have a government that works day and night to overcome this catastrophe."

In a separate development, the Onemi has lifted a tsunami alert for most of Chile's coast, which was issued immediately after Thursday's series aftershocks. The tsunami alarm remains in place only for Easter Island, a Polynesian island about 2,100 kilometers west of Chile in the Pacific Ocean that is governed from Santiago.