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A note from the author:
Saludos amigos y parientes. For those of you just checking on my blog I wanted to tell you everything would probably be more enjoyable if you start from my first entry because I told about my travels in chronological order. If you are more interested in the earthquake and less about my travels, feel free to check out the pictures on this listing and be on your way!
Starting off...everyone I know is fine from the earthquake. The miracle is my mom Judith and her family. Their town was one of the worst in the country. She has pictures of gigantic boats washed up into buildings and smashed into trees. There were three huge tidal waves over 30 ft. tall that washed everything from sea up into town. Cars were flipped on their roofs, and hundreds of people died. The center of town is almost all completely rubble. I'm sure you've seen pictures on the news. They are predicting 30 billion dollars worth of damage.
Santiago was much more fortunate. Only about 40 died, but that number would have been exponentially greater if it were not for the timing of the earthquake and the construction codes of the country. The airport was actually one of the most damaged structures in the city. Flights were all messed up, and it it weren't for my friend Christian and his demanding ways with airline personnel, I would still be stranded in Punta Arenas for 3 more days. As you can see in the pictures, their temporary terminal is a tent and chairs outside on one of the runways. The baggage claim is a slab of concrete. It was crazy to see something so weird.
On the drive home I saw some silos collapsed, but not TOO much damage. On the walk home I took a picture of a church one block away from my house that crumbled a little bit. I got home to a broken desk because my TV had fallen down and smashed it, but the apartment was in pretty good shape. It is kind of ironic because not even two weeks before I was talking to my Chilean dad Eduardo about the construction of the buildings. He said each building has many different sections that can slide around on each other to avoid damage, and the pillars are built on ball bearings, so the buildings are designed to move with the earthquakes instead of fighting against them. Very cool stuff. The quake here in Chile was over 50 times as powerful as Haiti's, but the Chileans were well prepared.
Judith showed me the clock from our dining room that fell. It is stuck on the time 3:35am-the exact moment of the quake! How dramatic! I heard from a friend the quake lasted 2 minutes...but it was the longest 2 minutes imaginable. Last night when I was lying in bed a felt a little tiny tremor shaking my bed back in forth. Pretty cool. There have been hundreds of tremors since the original 8.8 quake. The metro is back and running and life is almost back to normal in Santiago, but the rest of Chile will need some time.
If you have any questions don't hesitate to comment/email me!
Moyer48@gmail.com
Chao amigos!
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