Unrest continued to sweep across Chile on Friday as the country reached the seventh day of furious protests over inequality and the rising cost of living. As many as a million Chileans protested peacefully late into the evening in the capital Santiago in the biggest rallies yet since violence broke out a week ago. 

The demonstrations streamed through the streets, walking for kilometers from around Santiago to converge on Plaza Italia. Chile's Congress has been evacuated after protesters tried to force their way on to the building's grounds.

The week-long protests has left at least 18 people dead, including a child, with five people reportedly killed by the armed forces. 

Traffic already hobbled by truck and taxi drivers protesting road tolls ground to a standstill in Santiago as crowds shut down major avenues and public transport closed early ahead of marches that built throughout the afternoon. 

By mid-evening, most had made their way home in the dark ahead of an 11 p.m. military curfew. 

Santiago Governor Karla Rubilar said a million people marched in the capital – more than five percent of the country's population. Protesters elsewhere took to the streets in every major Chilean city. 

Protesters block access to lithium operations 

Protesters from indigenous communities around Chile's Atacama salt flats, the world's richest reserves of lithium, have blocked access to lithium operations amid nationwide rallies. 

This country possesses the world's largest reserves of the lightweight metal crucial to manufacturing batteries for electric vehicles, laptops and cellphones. The desert salt basin is home to the world's top two lithium producers: Chile's SQM SQMa.SN and U.S.-based Albemarle (ALB.N). 

Sergio Cubillos, president of the Atacama Indigenous Council, told Reuters a road blockade had shut down SQM's operations since Wednesday morning. 

"They're completely shut down," he said by phone from the windswept intersection of a local road with SQM's access route. 

An SQM spokeswoman in the capital Santiago told Reuters that she was unable to obtain official information from the region for now. 

Protests across Chile that started over a hike in public transport fares boiled into riots, arson and looting, and has brought more than 7,000 arrests and caused more than 1.4 billion U.S. dollars of losses to businesses in a week. 

(With input from Reuters)