By Maureen Valentine
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The Church of the Divine Providence in Avenue Providencia of Santiago, Chile, suffered structural damage from the tremors. This photo was taken a few hours after the earthquake. (Photo by Santiago Vanegas)
At 3:30 in the morning on Saturday, 27 February, I was sitting at my dining room table in my home in central Santiago, Chile, with friends having some drinks… when something peculiar started to happen. My house started to shake. There was a split second when I thought “Am I crazy or is the table moving?” and then I locked eyes with one of my friends with a mutual communication of “GET OUT!”
Everyone jumped up and started running toward the door, screaming as the walls continued to move for an excruciating 90 seconds. The entire neighbourhood flooded into the street for fear of their houses collapsing.
Throughout the early morning of the 27th and the rest of the day, we continued to feel aftershocks. There were so much that sometimes we couldn’t tell if it was our imagination or the ground was actually moving. Nevertheless, by midday, our electricity and internet access had been restored, which gave me the opportunity to find out exactly what had happened and if it was something my family back in North Carolina would see in the international news. I quickly discovered that the earthquake had measured 8.8 on the Richter scale and a top news story worldwide.
Posted under Chile, General, countries, responsible traveller, whl.travel newsletter
This post was written by editor on March 3, 2010
