Earthquake

Hello:

I’m fine, and there is no problem with my family or friends. Communication is still a mess, even inside Santiago. A whole mobile phones company has died, and even internet has problems. My closet collapsed, and that is the only thing which has to be fixed.
I was sleeping and the quake began. As usually, I didn’t care, because here in Chile a quake is normal, specially when there was a lot of time without one and because I’m not scared for quakes. But my Mum told me “Get out!” and I pick my mobile to call my granny, but lines were death already. To get out of my house I had to walk through the kitchen, but I didn’t wanted because I was listening how dishes and glasses were dropping on the floor and I had no shoes on my feet. Anyway, Mum get in and lead me out. Then I realized that there was nothing on the floor (It was 3:35 AM, and there was no electricity, and still was shaking). And I made the incredibly intelligent question: This is an earthquake? (In Spanish we have two words: temblor for moderate earthquake and terremoto for an big earthquake)
When stopped, I went to my room to get dressed. There was an impressive silence, there was no screams, no sounds, no nothing. Then people started to get out from their houses and sharing their versions of the quake. One of our neighbours was alone, so we stayed talking to her and her daughter because they were scared.
Then my brother arrived, because he was afraid of what could have happened to us, because his home turned a really mess. The fridge was opened and everything was throw away, his TV felt over and stuff from the closet were dropping. Even his car vas about half a meter from the place he park it. He, his family and my Mum went to the houses of his sister in law, his mother in law and our granny. Everyone were fine, a few things were broken, and water get out from the toilet bowl. Granny was fine, and she didn’t move from her bed, because she said: “If I’m gonna die, I’m gonna die anyway. Besides, the quake is not gonna stop just because of I get out of bed”.
My brother went back to his house, and we were awake until 7:30. As my Mp3 player (yeah, I don’t have I pod… yet) has a radio too, I was listening the news and that’s how I get informed. Of course we didn’t went to church because there were not public transport. In many places there was not bread (for us, bread is like rice for Chinese and Japanese) and still we didn’t have electricity. It returned about midnight and then we could see how catastrophic it was.
I have been in many places which doesn’t exist anymore, ancient houses were completely destroyed. Cultural patrimony is lost, a kind of building typical of our colonial architecture, made with mud which have resisted other quakes. Anyway it was a time bomb, because they had about 150 yeas old. The amazing thing was that new buildings (less than 10 years) collapsed and many of them are going to be demolished. And the construction companies are going to be sued for almost all the owners and the councils because the apartments were expensive and it really didn’t were worth what they paid for them. And the companies will be criminally charged because people died because of the bad houses.
Fortunately, people in Chile have in our genetic code written that if your are near the coastline, and is an earthquake, you have to run to the hills, because have just 5 minutes to be on a safe place, and that’s because in spite of the strength of the quake died no as much people as could (for our standards are too many, for world standards are not).
Also, as a nation, we are ashamed of people who is pillaging shops, taking LCD’s, DVD’s, washing machines, robbing and being caught for the cameras from many countries who seems to us as dishonest people. That’s not true, there are just a few people who are delinquents and most of who took something just was looking for food. People received their salaries this Friday, and most of them has no enough food on their homes, specially for their children because they buy all the stuff during the weekend. Still people don’t receive nor food nor water in many places. I think no one can blame someone who is stealing milk and bread for their children. That’s why people wanted the military forces to put in order people, because the delinquents were robbing even the stuff from people who lost everything. Finally the President decreed Catastrophe State, which means military forces controls everything and central government just organizes. In fact, this administration has not a strong character which allows do it fine. And they were afraid of decree curfew because they remembered Pinochet and they didn’t wanted to be like him. That’s why delinquency has increased the last 20 years. Finally they did, and that started to solve many problems, but still people clamour for military just shot when they see someone robbing. The despair of people is touching, because they lost everything, many of them are the only survivors of a whole family.
This quake is the 5th biggest of world history and 900 times stronger than Haiti’s one, but we have arose from the ruins of the worst quake ever and we’ll do it again like the Phoenix Bird reborns from the ashes.