Ring any bells? No?
Hmmm... OK; fine. I'll enlighten you.
On February 27th, 2010, at 3:34 a.m. (local time), Bío Bío, Chile's 8th region was struck by an 8.8 magnitude earthquake, devastating Concepción, the second largest city in the country. Reports show that this earthquake is the 5th strongest ever recorded and that it has even moved the earth 11 inches off its axis.
Now, if you've been following this blog at all recently, you'll be well aware by now that Andre and I are living in the Metropolitan Region (a.k.a Santiago), which is located exactly next to the region of Bío Bío, and is at about a 5 hour drive from Concepcion. The strength of the quake in Santiago was thankfully mitigated by the distance from the epicenter.
So, the following is the tale of Andre's and my harrowing experience of an 8.5 magnitude earthquake.
Let me start by giving you a little background information. First, Chile is famously known as the land of earthquakes (if I'm not mistaken, it's their main export). Santiago is one of the oldest cities in Latin America yet, due to the earthquakes, most of its colonial structures are gone. Second, Chile holds 3 spots in the list of '10 strongest earthquakes ever recorded' (#1, #5 and #8). Third, history shows that Chile is hit by earthquakes of this magnitude every fifteen years or so. Before the February quake, the last strong bit of seismic activity happened in 1985; meaning, we were about 10 years late; meaning, we had an extra 10 years of built up energy to deal with.
Our story begins with our heroes turning in for an early night. Andre and I work very hard and are always exhausted, so we decided that going to bed a little earlier than usual couldn't hurt. Lord knows that's one of the best decisions we've made in a long time, for little did we know, our slumber would soon be cut quite short.
I don't know if you know this about me reader, but I'm a heavy sleeper. So, you'll imagine my surprise when I found myself snatched from my comfy dream world only to find a terrified Andre frantically clutching at my arm.
Now, and this is key reader, Andre had never been in an earthquake before except for a 4.0 magnitude tremor when he lived in Taiwan. I, on the other hand, had already been in a pretty strong 7.2 when living in the Dominican Republic. That said, it's important to note that the magnitude of earthquakes is measured by an exponential logarithm. Meaning? This isn't Spinal Tap. Things don't just go one higher, to 11; they multiply.
I tried to calm Andre down by reminding him that Chile has tremors all the time and that it would pass soon. It didn't. Actually, it got stronger. I still didn't loose my cool and continued to try and calm Andre down. "It'll pass. It'll pass. Relax.", I would say, and as soon as I finished the statement, the whole thing would escalate. Needless to say, I did not keep my cool much longer.
I know none of you have ever been in an 8.5 earthquake before, and I can confidently say that because I don't have any Chilean readers. In fact, I'm pretty sure most of you have never been in an earthquake of any kind. Many of our friends have already expressed morbid curiosity and a desire to be 'caught' in an earthquake someday. Let me, please, do my best to dissuade you.
The earthquake, itself, lasted about 90 seconds; that's a long time even for a carnival ride. Factor that in with the fact that Andre and I live on the 14th floor of a 22 story building, and you have a recipe for terror.
THE CRACKING. Dear God; the cracking. I've never heard anything like it before and pray to every God (pagan and/or dogmatic) that I never will again. The sound was that of crackers being chewed, as heard through 100 loud-speakers at full blast.
The shaking, on the other hand, caused more of a grown-up 'shaken baby syndrome' than 'post traumatic stress disorder'. We decided to stay in bed since we deemed it safer, while at the same time hoping that this would not be the end of us. We are one of the lucky households of people with no furniture or wall hangings, so we had no monetary or physical damage. Many of our friends and co-workers, though, have had to buy new China and various pieces of furniture as a result of the quake.
Once the shaking subsided, Andre lept out of bed and threw on some pants while ritualistically repeating "Oh my God, Oh my God, Oh my God". I, to my astonishment, was quite calm, to which I can only credit my past Dominican experience. Andre was the first to notice that not only was the power out, but the entire city was blacked-out as well.
Note: Our apartment, on the 14th floor of our building, has a fabulous view of the city. The sight of this enormous capital city, completely blacked-out, was nothing short of breathtaking.
So, as Andre freaks out over our lack of electricity, I begin searching for my flashlight. As soon as that problem is solved, a new one appears. OUR DOOR WON'T OPEN!!!
... A homo says: "What?! :O"
Indeed, the quake had shaken the building with such force that it caused the door frame to shift enough to brake the lock on the door-knob, thus trapping us inside our apartment; which sucks just as bad as it sounds.
We fiddled around with the lock for a while, yet our efforts yielded no results. Thankfully, all our neighbors, who mostly consist of homos and ex-pats, began to spill out into the hall. We asked for their help, they told us not to panic, and went and got help. Soon, an employee of the building was kicking our door in, thus releasing us from our undeserved house arrest. The door, though, was not repaired until a week later when the building staff discovered that we were just leaving it ajar while we were at work. In our defense, they wanted to make us pay for it, which is fucked up because it's not our building or apartment and we were not the ones who installed faulty doors in 30 apartments.
Freed, we left our apartment and began comparing notes with our neighbors. All stories were pretty much the same: "We were sleeping. The shaking woke us up. Some stuff broke." After a few minutes people began to disperse. Some thought it would be wise to evacuate the building; others went back to bed.
Andre and I shortly re-entered our now lock-less home, gathered important papers, money, cookies and a bottle of water and took to the hall to await further instructions.
We hung out in the hall for about a half-hour before a building employee urged us to evacuate, since many water and gas pipes had been broken and authorities had not yet determined if the building was stable enough to be considered safe.
After a disaster of such magnitude, taking the elevator down from the 14th floor was out of the question; so we went for the stairs. From this point on, until we reached the building lobby, everything was seen through Doom / Blair Witch Project goggles. We entered the completely dark staircase with nothing but a flashlight, our PJs and a bag full of documents and money (a.k.a. a sack full of dreams, which I carried everywhere until the eventual repairing of our door).
The stairs were flooded and the smell of gas was in the air. Every so often we would pass one of our neighbors, dressed in their night clothes and in a general state of agitation. As we continued our descent, we where constantly surprised by the newer, bigger puddles and cracks on every coming floor.
When we finally reached the first floor, we couldn't figure out how to open the door to exit into the lobby (later remembering that the lobby has an extremely high ceiling, meaning that the first floor is actually the second). We exited the staircase on to what is officially the second floor and walked around looking for an alternate exit. We spotted an open doorway and discovered that it led to the indoor garden. We looked for a possible exit to the street but could only conclude that the patio, in its present darkened state, would be an excellent space for casual cruising.
After a few minutes, we gave up on the garden and went back into the second floor hallway. After pondering for a few seconds on what options we had not exhausted, we realized we had not tried the elevators yet. We called for them, and in no time the doors to a pitch-black box were opening before us. Reluctantly, we boarded; flashlight in hand. Turns out, the elevators were flooded too; Oh Joy! A few very stressful seconds later, we were safely delivered in the lobby; much to the amazement and disgust of many of our fellow tenants.
After completing our mission, unlocking an achievement point and pressing the 'save' button, we walked out of the now flooded lobby and joined the entire population of the building complex: be-cigaretted queens, underwhelmed Chilean grandparents and hysterical ex-pats.
We were asked to keep calm and to please be patient, though many people were not having it. Most were on a cel phone calling their parents to come pick them up, while others were busy rushing back upstairs to pack a valise and, literally, run for the hills. Andre and I walked around trying to pick up on the general mood of the crowd; half of which were in a state of restrained panic, while the other half just wanted to go back to bed.
We could not help but be tremendously amused whenever some drunken individual would just wonder off the street and into the complex since, after all, this was still a Friday night. The ex-pats, who had never experienced an earthquake before, were fun to watch as well. There was one girl in particular, who we dubbed 'Fainty Girl', who was crying hysterically into the arms of a woman who I can only assume was her house mother. When they brought her inside to calm her down and give her a place to lie down and rest, the hysteria took a new turn as she fell to the floor completely passed out. For a second, we couldn't help but wonder if she was full of shit, since she was lying on something like 2 sleeping bags and 2 comforters; without a doubt, the most comfortable seat in the house.
At around 6 a.m. I convinced Andre to take a walk with me around our block so we could assess the damage done to the city. We went from our building to Plaza de Armas (which is about 5 blocks away) and back.
Let me re-assure you reader, no buildings fell in Santiago. There was quite a bit of damage; rubble, glass and such, but no real catastrophe.
Thankfully, Chile's very modern infrastructure and long history of earthquakes have prepared it for the worst. Why do you think we had an 8.8 in Concepcion and 8.5 in Santiago and only about 1000 people died? Most victims were not killed by building or house collapses; they were killed by the subsequent Tsunami. Chile has had extremely strict safety codes imposed on its buildings throughout most of its history for this exact reason.
The Chilean government took immediate action, with reports surfacing of then president Bachelet walking through the streets, inspecting the damages first hand, minutes after the incident. After hearing this, we were bitterly reminded of the U.S. government's tortoise-like reaction time during Katrina; not to mention its appalling long term handling of the crisis in New Orleans.
After our little exploratory excursion, we returned to the apartment complex and noticed that the crowd had begun to thin out, with many having been picked up by relatives or friends. Their desire to flee was completely understandable and later perfectly echoed by Andre, who utterly refused to spend more time in the apartment than absolutely necessary, for who wants to hang out in a 22 story building after one of the strongest earthquakes of all time? Not us, that's for sure.
We hung around the lobby and continued to walk around our neighborhood until about 10 a.m., when we decided to return to the apartment, get some supplies for the day, change out of our PJs and spend the day away from tall structures.
When we got to our apartment we were pleased to find that our electricity was back, but that they had also cut the water supply. We immediately took to the interwebs, Facebook-ed about our well being and broke out of that building like a bat out of Hell.
Though exhaustion had long set in, and I really was not afraid of staying in the apartment (something which pissed off Andre, who thought there might be aftershocks stronger than the original and/or that the building would crumble at any moment), Andre convinced me to leave and stay away from the building for most of the day until things calmed down, which seemed like a fair request. So, we did. We loitered in cafes and sat in parks, all the while trying to stay awake. At about 4 p.m. I was able to persuade Andre to return to the apartment with me, for I could handle the exhaustion no longer.
As we looked out from the balcony we were glad to see that most buildings had electricity once more and that there was no real structural damage done to the city.
"Oh, but wait. What's that?"
Is it....
... the apocalypse?
(Sigh) Yes, turns out, a building a few blocks away from ours had had a gas / electrical explosion. Fun. Soon the authorities had it under control; though earthquakes, tsunamis and fires don't exactly make this a day of victories.
Leave it to a cafe named 'Psychosis' to put this crap up.
After that, things smoothed out a bit, for which we were nothing but grateful. Soon, it all became about recovery and gawking at the damage. Here are some shots:
At my Job:
At the Museum of Contemporary Art, near our apartment:
At a very old church in Providencia which was also wrecked by the Valdivia quake of 1965 and the one in 1985:
When it comes to recovery, Chileans don't fuck around. A zillion telethons, charity concerts, donation programs and other forms of outreach were organized, literally, overnight. And Chileans aren't exactly stingy. A 48 hour telethon, for which they recruited both national and international talent, hosted by Sabado Gigante's Don Francisco and with special appearences by then President Bachelet and President Elect Piñera, raised twice the set goal (the exact sum of which I don't remember but know was exorbitantly high).
The government also acted quickly and efficiently. On Piñera's first day in office, he visited the devastated city of Concepción and gave a press conference with the heads of the opposition parties where they all pledged swift and cooperative efforts to help the affected areas and families. Since then, hundreds of emergency shelters have been built, water and electricity have been restored to Concepción and reconstruction projects are well under way.
One of the most popular slogans for disaster relief, "Fuerza Chile!" which means "Be Strong Chile!", has gone from popular saying and brand to a powerful statement and symbol of Chilean solidarity and determination.
After the major quake, hundreds of aftershocks have followed. Most notable of all was the 7.2 magnitude quake which took place during Piñera's inauguration which had a hoard of Latin American head's of state and Spanish royalty in attendance.
Overall, we don't really take notice of any shaking stronger than 6.0 anymore. Andre put it best when one of his friends in California asked for his compassion after they had their 7.0 : "Please, I eat 7 pointers for breakfast".
Indeed, we've had dozens of tremors stronger than 6.0 since the big one, and everyone (including us) seems remarkably unbothered. I suppose after you've survived an 8.5 magnitude earthquake you can't help but tell Mother Nature to go suck it for.
Chile still stands and it's doing better than ever.
So, Mother Nature, bring it on! We're ready.
Fuerza Chile!
