Report from Chile
updated: Mar 02, 2010, 9:53 AM

By Randall Urban

--- Written Monday, Mar 1, about 1:00PM

I surmise that the Chilean quake is no longer dominating the news elsewhere, but things are still going on here. I thought I'd share some more thoughts/observations. I know I am reaching my limit of watching/listening/talking about the quake, so I don't know if this will be my last Earthquake Edition, or not.

I got through to talk to Maria in Santiago yesterday morning. The things there are stable. Maria, not wanting to sleep upstairs, slept in the living room, with the lights and the radio on. She pretty informed after listening constantly to the radio (their cable TV is still out). While Zapallar's aftershocks have not been too severe, she said that morning that Santiago had a 4 and Concepcion had a 7. Sunday, throughout Chile, there were over 40 aftershocks of at least 5 in magnitude.

A doctor friend returned yesterday to Santiago from Zapallar. His hospital Clinicas Los Condes was in shambles; 5th floor collapsed, microscopes fallen and smashed, incubators exploded, etc. A hospital collapsed on the coast, so he says all the trauma cases from there are coming to his hospital in Santiago. It's like a war zone; he likened it to Viet Nam. One child from the coast came in with his arms in a bucket.

There is a major overpass in Santiago that collapsed. Last night, it was left unattended and a family packed in a car drove over the edge. All are in critical condition. Someone must have stolen the barricades.

We have friends who have a farm about 80 miles south of Santiago, or about 200 miles north of the epicenter. As a background, Claudia's family had one of the big traditional haciendas, but during Allende's time, these haciendas were split up with many parts being given to the workers. Claudia/Victor and all her family (mom, brothers) have pieces of the old hacienda. Claudia and Victor have a newer structure that survived quite well, with mostly stuff being thrown off shelves and walls, and all furniture being rearranged for them. Claudia's family didn't fare as well. Some have original adobe houses, and one built a beautiful, new adobe house. Well, adobe does not fare well in earthquakes, and they all suffered much damage. In fact, throughout the devastated areas, a lot of damage seems to be to those beautiful, historic adobe churches and houses.

Another story in the background: A contractor just finished last year 2 six story apartment buildings of modest cost. On one, while he was building, it was determine the concrete was of deficient standards. He had to shore up that building before he could sell units. Well, during the quake, both buildings collapsed. He has built other complexes in more affluent neighborhoods, and those buildings had no problems. These things happen in the US as well, but here there are no building inspectors during the construction process, and I imagine there are lots of shortcuts taken in Chile with low cost housing.

I have told you of some of the lawlessness that has happened, of the looting of all the supermarkets in Concepcion. They used bamboo and plastic to siphon gas from gas station tanks. They even stole parts of a copper sculpture of South American independence fighter Bernardo O'Higgins. I think it is wrong when the TV people are on air for half an hour showing people walking out of a market with lots of goods. Why shouldn't that cause other poor people to say, "Hey, there's a market down the street from here. I need food also. Let's go get something". I just want to make sure that you don't get the impression that things are unsafe or unstable here. These seem to be isolated cases in the hardest hit areas by the hardest hit people. At no point does one feel unsafe. Most of us, I guess all of us, are just trying to deal with problems of electricity, water, transportation, and, in the sad cases, housing and death. It reminds me of the Isla Vista Bank burning I was at in 1970. The presence of 1000's of people honestly protesting the war in Vietnam allowed a few to put a match to the bank. Here, the presence of 100,000's panicking about food and water allows the few to initiate thievery.

Overall, I think the government is responding well to this tragedy. They are more prepared than most countries for earthquakes, because it is a normal way of life here in this seismic territory. Tremors happen all the time. Two years at Christmas we had a week of what seemed like bi-hourly shakes. The strongest earthquake ever in the world happened in Chile in 1960 (9.5). Another big one in 1985 (7.8). In olden times there were quakes of 9.0 (1868), 8.7 (1730) and 2 at 8.5 (1922,1575). So the government seems prepared to deal pretty with this. It is just always overwhelming in these situations when one is trying to save people and protect against looting at the same time. We can all remember the chaos caused by these natural disasters, like New Orleans, like Haiti, like the tsunami of 2004.

I never mentioned the tsunami, which hit along the coast of Chile near the epicenter. Chile was slack in not issuing a tsunami warning in the half hour before it hit. The 13 extra feet of water came ashore, not always in waves, but just in rising water level. Towns were destroyed, either by flooding or others by everything being forcefully moved inland or up the coast. One woman was shaken by the quake, only to find herself in her apartment, neck-high in water, holding her baby above her head. Lucky they lived to tell the tale.

Several years back, Maria and I took a trip down the Chilean coast from Pichilemu to Concepcion (travel update #41 link) This is the exact area closest to the epicenter and hit hardest by the tsunami. We lunched seaside in Constitution, stayed on the beach in Pelluhue, watched them take the fish off the boats in Conaripe by wading out into the water with carts and oxen, and basked in the sun on the beach in Dichato. All these places were hard hit. I assume many of the small coastal towns we saw are gone. Those that remain probably are extensively damaged. Imagine, first hit by an earthquake of the magnitude of that size, followed by being hit by mass quantities of water. Who knows how many people there are still buried in rubble or missing from having been swept away.

Zapallar was spared by the tsunami. The bay is naturally sheltered, but even around the corner at Mar Bravo, where the waves are always big, there was nothing unusual as a result of the tsunami. In fact, the last two days the bay has been like a lake.

One thing one doesn't think about. During the quake, many friends living in apartment buildings in Santiago had problems getting out of their building. All buildings are highly secured, but they all have electronic gates, which are difficult to work without electricity. Sure, they are suppose to have overrides, or backup power, but in Chile, things are not always kept in working order.

They have postponed opening of schools for another week, so yesterday the roads into Santiago from the North were not as bad as they could have been. I know people who still went, braving what were to be horrendous delays, and others who decided they would rather wait it out in Zapallar. The dads probably all had to go back for work, but moms and kids could stay. Perhaps there were only one million cars going into Santiago instead of 2 million. The trip turned out to be fairly normal. I am going to try to call Maria now and see if she wants me to go into Santiago and be with them.

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