Saturday, February 27, 2010

Earthquake!


okay, it's 3.36 in the morning and I'm waking up to a shaking house. It does not stop shaking for what seems like five minutes, or five hours (official numbers: about a minute and a half)
maybe given to the fact that I had been sleeping, my thoughts were very coherent and they went like this: NOOOO! MAKE IT STOP! STOP! NOOOO! I felt like 6-year-old, I swear.
And then at one point my adult self joined the party in my head and threw up previously collected information so I went to stand under the frame of the door. Safest place, I have been told.

And then it stopped. There is a sound to an earthquake; I didn't know before. The sound is something like the roaring of a dragon or hell's ovens exploding. And afterwards there was silence. and then more quakes, more or less little. Sirens. the sound of a group of people in the streets, of crashing glass and general mayhem. Electricity died, internet connection died. I was alone - R was in Cúrico with his family, my new roommate Montserrat at her boyfriend's place.

(aside: yes that is a name, not just a monk place in Spain, and the appropriate affectionate nickname is "Montse". Which to me sounds like Beyoncé in Berlinerisch, with the final "se" like the ending of a certain F-ord. Or was it a V-word?)

There are more little shakes. the feeling is somewhat like this: throwing up seasick in a tempest. At the same time I have never experienced an earthquake so my brain is searching frantically to classify it, and mostly seems to return messages to me like: this is not happening. you are dreaming. you are imagining this. We don't know this, therefore it isn't.

The whole morning was eerily silent. I went out for 15 minutes in the morning, against Rs admonishions. I did not go very far; I feel really safe in this house. Things - like strutting parts of houses or convoluted electricity lines - have crashed here before, all without quaking, I don't need to try my luck. In the small radius I saw, there were a lot of looted shops, broken glass, broken facades. Almost all shops closed of course, and very empty. But mostly the flat downtown area seemed okay. In the hills, I've heard and read, it's worse. From my tour guide walks I remember many houses perched precariously on hillsides, made of flimsy material. the damage there must be bad.

by now the phone and, thankfully! the internet connection is working. R calls me hourly to check and report from Cúrico. The 7th region, where he is stuck (tunnels and bridges have to be checked before half of vacationing Chile can safely be sent home; some collapsed), appears much worse off: no electricity, no water, lots of after-quakes, and heavy damage zone.

thanks to the internet I know now it was a 8.8 earthquake, epicentre further south, close to Concepción, Chile's second largest city, from which there do not seem to come many consistent news. It must have been less strong here then. Outside is nobody. It just feels a bit strange to be alone in this.

Update: still afterquakes, some quite long too. I went outside another time and realized how shaky my legs are. the quake here was "only" 6+ strong.

it's so strange to not be able to do anything. everybody seems dazed, and all you can do is wait.

1 comment:

  1. Hey, good to hear you are well. Keep us updated.. tobs

    ReplyDelete