Earthquake

Arrived back in Santiago from Valparaiso yesterday evening, staying with 2 sisters, Vivi and Ceci, whom I met on the bus from San Pedro, who live together and kindly offered me a bed for a couple of nights in their flat.

At about 3.30am last night, I awoke to the sound of them both calling my name. I'm not easily scared but I must admit to feeling instantly gripped with fear as I awoke to the bed, the room and the whole building shaking violently. "Un terremoto?!" I remembered the word for earthquake. Even during all my years in California I had never experienced one this big.

I jumped out of bed and Ceci and I held each other while we stood under the frame of a door, Vivi under the front door. Books were falling off the shelves, pictures off the walls, crockery breaking on the kitchen floor and we found out later that an antique teapot from their grandmother had also fallen off the sideboard and smashed to pieces. It really felt as if the roof was going to cave in as cracks started to form in the walls.

I heard shouts and screams outside and felt the earth beneath my feet rumbling and roaring and moving back and forth like one of those fairground attractions I used to love. I think I was shaking as much as the building which in that moment felt so fragile. "I am not ready to die under a heap of rubble", I thought to myself, "this too shall pass."

After a few long minutes the quake started to subside and we all gathered outside the apartment building in our pyjamas with other neighbours bearing torches as the electricity had gone off, as well as the phones. I don't know how long we were outside, about an hour, after which time I was ready to go back to bed. Everyone else stayed outside but I went back in and fell straight to sleep again. Apparently there were tremors all through the night but I slept peacefully through them all, preferring to be in a warm, cosy bed than outside in the cold. When my body wants slumber, there's not much that will stop it.

The earthquake measured 9.6 on the Richter scale, the strongest in 50 years. Many homes in Santiago have been destroyed as well as elsewhere in the country, and about 214 deaths have been reported.

I was supposed to be on the night bus for the Lake District now, I'd already bought my ticket, but I ain't goin' nowhere. There are no buses running, no metro, no trains and the airport is closed for at least 72 hours because the roof caved in. Many of the roads south of here have been damaged and that's the direction I was headed. All the shops are closed, even the supermarkets so we can't even stock up on beer or wine, or better still, pisco sour (a delicious Chilean cocktail).

I'm grateful that no-one here got hurt and that the sisters' property is still intact with just a few cracks in the wall. I'm lucky to be in someone's home and not stuck on my own in a dingy hostel. The electricity and phone lines have come back on so at least I can play on the computer. Things could be a lot worse.

Went for a drive this evening looking for somewhere open but everything was closed. Realised how lucky we are because most of the areas we drove through were in total darkness with no electricity or water.

I have become a source of great amusement in the neighbourhood as the sisters tell their friends that not only did I not wake up when the earthquake started, but that they had to shout at me a few times to rouse me and that I slept through the aftershocks. People look at me like in complete disbelief as if I'm some sort of freak. I try to explain that I sleep very deeply and that I'm a litte "sorda" (deaf) but mistakenly say "serda" (means 'sow', spelt 'cerda') which makes everyone laugh. "Cerdita", meaning piglet, has now become my nickname as they're amazed at how much food I eat.

Hope to find out tomorrow about the transport situation and when and how I'm going to get out of here. As I type this, I can feel the ground shaking slightly and the ceiling light is swaying. All part of the adventure but I can think of more fun ways to feel the earth move and will be happy to distance myself from fault lines and volcanoes. But for now, I'm chillin' in Chile.

Ceci posted her version of what happened last for those who understand Spanish - it's under the 1st title 'Earthquake in Chile' that Andy posted.