8.8 Magnitude Earthquake Hits Chile

At 0340 (according to the clock in my hotel bedroom) on Saturday 27th February, 2010, a massive earthquake hit Chile.  The epicentre of the 8.8 magnitude terremoto was in Concepcion, a city of some 500,000 people…that is 270 miles away from where I was, at Santiago Airport.

I have experienced an earthquake once before, in Cyprus, but this was far, far worse.  The violent shaking continued for about 2 minutes, although, lying on a bedroom floor, on level 5, with nowhere to go, it felt longer.  The noises are terrifying.

Once the movement stopped, there was deathly silence…and this is truly frightening; it is dark and you don’t know if another, possibly worse quake will follow. Your instinct is to get outside and you hope you don’t get caught by an aftershock on the way.

Luckily for everyone at the Holiday Inn, and those in the airport, nobody was killed and only a couple of people needed medical care.  Some 300 people spent the rest of the night in the airport car park, which, thankfully, was massive and unencumbered by buildings that might collapse at any minute. The hotel was damaged but this appeared to be mostly superficial…broken windows, furniture…all the booze bottles in the bar. The airport was badly affected, but apart from one collapsed walkway the rest did not appear to be structural. Accounts of what it was like inside the transit lounges were harrowing – the noise and the darkness, and not knowing how to get out. The ceiling tiles came down, the sprinkler systems were activated so that dislodged electrical cables were swinging in ankle deep water, glass was smashing all around. Anything that could be shaken loose was.

What was striking about the whole episode was the absolute total calm of everyone involved. Everybody of course was scared, but there was no panic, no screaming, shouting or crying, even from the very small children; and as we waited patiently in that car park for daylight, instances of human kindness….total strangers lending clothes to the half naked hotel guests, borrowing mobile phones to call home, and any news that was gleaned was filtered person to person, group to group.

It will be some time before the airport is fully functional, and in Concepcion and the surrounding areas, it will be years before things are back to anything like normal; and for those who lost loved ones, life will never be the same again.
Even God cannot change the past. (Agathon (447-401 BC).