Earthquake in Iquique, 8.2

May you never have to call your mother, right before she goes to bed, and explain that, “there has been a disaster. You’ll see it on the news tomorrow morning.”

At least I was just calling just to say, “I wanted you to hear it from me, first. And I’m okay.”

It’s not like the fears of my family have been unfounded. We were in Iquique just a few months ago. I had joked with my mom about how we’d have to run for the hills if there was an earthquake, and now images of people doing exactly that fill the airwaves.

I didn’t even feel the recent earthquake while in Santiago, and I didn’t know it happened until people started messaging to ask if I was okay. We’re 900 miles to the south of Iquique, that’s like a difference of NYC to Wisconsin.

Our thoughts are now with those up north who had to leave their homes, and for those who were affected by the destruction.

It’s been a surreal experience watching the U.S. coverage of the earthquake from this end of the globe. Obnoxiously, NPR got a basic geographic fact wrong. But more insidiously, several articles exaggerated the deadliness before the numbers came in, and assumed it would be much worse. Then, several articles treated the low mortality rate and minimal destruction as happening just by chance or “luck,” and didn’t mention the power of preparation, great engineering, and Chile’s hard work. The story should have been, “Great job, Chile.” Chile has very strict building codes and excellent, cautious engineers. Since 2010, they have had tsunami drills, and last night the people evacuated calmly. There’s no doubt in my mind that Chile avoided disaster as a direct result of preparation.

Surprisingly, the U.S. news hasn’t picked up on the real political story, which is that the President of Chile waited 5 hours before making a statement after the earthquake. The Vancouver Sun reports,

“Bachelet, who just returned to the presidency three weeks ago, waited five hours after the quake struck to address her nation. It was not lost on many Chileans that the last time she presided over a major quake, days before the end of her 2006-10 term, her emergency preparedness office prematurely waved off a tsunami danger. Most of the 500 dead from that magnitude-8.8 tremor survived the shaking, only to be caught in killer waves in a disaster that destroyed 220,000 homes and washed away large parts of many coastal communities.”

In 2010, through a tragedy of errors, including translation errors, communication errors, experts being blatantly ignored, and a fundamental misunderstanding of geology by certain officials, the Chilean navy did not evacuate the coast and the President told the Chilean people there was no danger of a tsunami. Just minutes after the earthquake, a U.S. geologist warned Chile of the high probability of a tsunami in an e-mail. He then called 20 minutes later, but the commander who should have taken the call couldn’t speak English. The Chilean geologist who took the call for him thought that the naval commander already knew the danger of a tsunami existed and assumed that the navy had issued evacuation orders. Alas, that was not the case. Several experts after that alerted officials of the danger, but the evacuation warning was still not issued. Tragically, an hour before one of the tsunamis hit, a navy radio broadcast reassured communities that there was no danger of a tsunami. Hearing this caused people to stay put and to return to their homes after fleeing, only to be killed in the wave. Most of the death toll was due to the tsunamis.

I feel uncomfortable even describing it, because I know it’s embarrassing for a proud nation.

The earthquake last night did not generate a major tsunami, but it’s clear that Chile was prepared this time. To their credit, Chile has learned from their mistakes. I definitely can’t say the same for the Long Island after Hurricane Irene; when Sandy hit a year later we were still woefully ill-prepared, even though Irene had made the lack of emergency preparedness obvious. Carlos and I spent some very long, cold nights and days in our dark house that November. For now, I’m glad the devastation isn’t widespread and that I’m living among such a resilient, strong people, who take mistakes in stride and cooperate to make their country safer.

 

 

Edit: It seems at least CNN noticed that Chile deserved some credit for the low death toll. Maybe they were waiting a little bit for things to settle before positing it. Although now, just this hour, a second quake has hit Iquique and people are being evacuated again.

Las escaleras y el peso.

For several weeks we were on the road, traveling through the north of Chile. We flew from Santiago to the coastal town of Iquique and worked our way back on buses. Stepping out of the airport in Iquique was like stepping into an entirely different country. The desert stretched until it reached the ocean; giant sand dunes formed the cliffs along the shore without pausing their march for a single blade of grass. Chile is exceptionally ecologically diverse because it spans so many latitudes. It’s longer as the U.S. is wide, a fact which I did not fully appreciate until traveling half of that length by bus.

The domestic flight in Chile was shockingly simple. I could bring liquids. I didn’t have to take off my shoes. No one patted me down or scanned me to check out “the goods” with one of those cancer-scanners. That’s it? I asked, when we went through security in less than five minutes. Welcome to Chile, he answered.

We made the mistake to pack all of our clothes together in one big, magenta mega-suitcase. It rolled wonderfully, but at ~40 kilos took both of us to lift it. Up and down narrow hostel stairs we went, one of us walking backward. Soon we became experienced, and I became proud of our perfect teamwork. As we easily shared the burden, I joked that the suitcase was even big enough to hold all of our hopes and dreams for a lifetime together.

Somewhere along the way we became strong, tan, and thin. We walked everywhere, hiked, and rolled that suitcase up dusty roads. The meals we cooked at the hostels were small and simple as we tried to balance the efficiency of rice and pasta against monotony. There is a certain bond that can arise from cooking meals in strange kitchens with other travelers. We met people from England, Finland, Germany, Japan, Belgium, Australia, France, Brazil, Argentina… even Massachusetts! Some had just started their trips, others were traveling the world and had been on the road for a year. They shared stories, advice, and food with us, and made our trip much more interesting.

Once we had our food stolen from the hostel fridge. We had cooked extra the night before and were looking forward to having it for lunch, but we found our tupperware empty except for one bite. As if we wouldn’t notice if they left a bite? Perhaps it was so they didn’t have to wash it? I was angry, but like most anger I experience, it was because I was hungry. We began to form theories about which guest in the hostel might have eaten it. We could rule out the New Zealand woman since her food was also eaten. An eccentric English woman who had befriended us was enthusiastic about the investigation, which seemed to support my British stereotypes, based solely on Sherlock Holmes and Scotland Yard. Without any clues, we initially based our theories largely on WWII alliances, which didn’t get us too far since she insisted the Germans aggression towards me wasn’t nearly as bad as I thought (I swear their laughter was malicious when they learned US citizens have to pay a steep reciprocity fee to enter Chile*). Our English friend was convinced it was the French women. We never solved the mystery, but when we learned the Japanese guy had run out of money and was eating ketchup for dinner, that seemed more convincing than anything else.

At the beginning of the journey I became very sick for the first time in Chile. I caught something a few days before leaving Santiago, likely E coli. It stayed for several days and we missed some beach time in Iquique while he nursed me. The water in Santiago is very safe, so I imagine it that it was likely from some lettuce I didn’t wash thoroughly enough. I only drank bottled water on our trip and we were exceptionally cautious. After getting sick in Peru, I don’t travel without imodium. I was lucky to have it, even if it was almost too effective. Unfortunately, the bathrooms in our first hostel were not great, despite it having good reviews. Being sick anywhere is hard, but being sick in a shared, cramped, dirty bathroom is so much worse.

Even while the sickness, I got out for some sunsets and got my Rachael Carson on at the tidal pools. Beyond the illness and the food being stolen, most of the trip went smoothly as we moved south. More highlights to come!

*The reason the US citizens have to pay a large reciprocity fee ($160) to enter is because that’s what we charge Chileans to get a US visa. Adjust for the cost of living in Chile and that seems totally outrageous. It’s totally fair of Chile to charge me that since it is likely such a hardship on their own citizens. Hopefully the US-Chile visa waiver agreement will happen next year and this will be a thing of the past.