Terremoto

First of all, I’m fine and everyone else in my group is fine. No one was hurt last night, but some of our plans have changed a little. For those of you who haven’t heard, most of populated Chile was rocked by a huge earthquake last night at around 3:30 am. I was sleeping on the ninth (and top) floor of a hotel in Santiago when it started. I woke up a little confused, and at first I thought someone was in my room shaking my bed. The shaking then started getting pretty intense, and I realized that it wasn’t a wake-up call but an earthquake. I got out of bed and stood in the doorway of my room. The electricity was out at this point, and I had to brace myself against the door frame to stay upright. The building was shaking pretty violently, and dishes, tables, lamps, and pictures where falling down and breaking. There was also a lot of plaster falling off of the walls and ceilings. My roommate was still sitting in his bed, so I told him to come over and join me in the doorway, hang on, and enjoy the ride. I would estimate that the earthquake only lasted about 30 seconds. From the news, they said that the epicenter was far to the south of here, but it was still an 8.8 on the Richter scale in Santiago.

After the shaking stopped, I found a flashlight, and my roommates and I walked down the stairs and left the building. We went to the spot where we were supposed to meet our group, and waited for the rest of the ISA students and our leaders. It took a couple hours for the electricity to come back on, but someone brought a deck of cards and we played spoons while we waited. But we didn’t have spoons so we played with bits of rubble (the word for rubble in Spanish is “escombros”). After a couple hours the electricity came back on and we were told it was safe to return to our rooms. There was a lot of plaster on the floors and broken glass, but nothing too major seemed to be destroyed. We did have to put a lot of the furniture back in place, but then we went back to sleep. The rest of the morning there were aftershocks, with an especially big one at 7:30, but nothing like the original quake.

Oh – there was just another aftershock. I’m kind of getting used to them.

So far I’ve heard that 82 people were killed in the quake, but I haven’t seen anyone that is injured, and there are no visible signs of damage to the outsides of buildings that I can see. All in all, it was a unique experience, and at no point was I afraid of being injured. My greatest fear was that looters would take advantage of the situation, and my stuff might get stolen. Fortunately that didn’t happen, and I got to experience the largest earthquake in Chile since 1985.

Bird update –
So far it’s been pretty slim pickings in the city, but I do have two new life birds. Austral Thrush and Chimango Caracara. I’m at a grand total of 6 for the trip so far.

Also, the study abroad office at Messiah is called the Epicenter.