The day the earth shook and scare the shit out of me.
finally i have time and the right mood to write this.
as you all know last february 27 Chile was hit by a major earthquake of 8.8.
i can't not explain the devastation we're living here in Chile, but you all can imagine what an earthquake and a tsunami can do to a country. lots of cities and towns next to the ocean were destroyed or simply they're not there anymore.
i don't think that i've been this scared in my entire life. it was an awful experience.
i was at the house beach of my brother's girlfriend, i just got there on Thursday. anyway, the whole day was weird, i don't know, the sky was weird, even our mood wasn't the best.
so, the quake hits at 3:35 or something like that, and we were outside having some drinks, and i have to say that i was really sleepy, actually i wanted to go to bed, but the guys didn't let me, so i stayed there, listening to whatever they were talking about.
at 3:30, i think, i went to the bathroom and when i went out one of my brother's friend caught me on the hallway, and we started to talk, i was leaning on a wall.
so, we were talking when i felt the house was shaking, i told him "the house is shaking" and we stare at each other but we both thought it was something little. but then his girlfriend started to shout from outside "hon, come here!" so i stayed there, and then everything started to shook more and more. my brother started to shout my name and i run outside. we were all together when the ground started to shake with this unbelievable force, and then the lights went out, it was there when i started to panic, it was like a "the world is going to end" movie. so, the light went out and you could see flashes of light outside on the street, later i found out it was the street lights blowing up.
it was so long... and the sound of glass breaking, the glasses, plates and whatever it was inside the house, it was so scary. and one of the guys was so scared that started to pray out loud, asking to god to keep us safe, 'cause frankly i thought the house was going to fall down over our heads. actually i'm still nervous writing this.
finally everything went quiet, the only thing we could hear was the alarms of some cars.
everybody, my friends and i, started to say that it was an earthquake, and we were all worried about our families. but then it hits us, we were right next to the ocean, so in less than 5 minutes we were all in the cars heading for higher ground.
one of the girls was crying, my brother's girlfriend was holding to my arm like if her life depended of it. the roads were full of people running away from a possible tsunami. so we got to a toll plaza, 'cause we knew they'll have light and bathrooms.
and we waited there, until daylight came.
i have to say, nobody knew anything, the radios wasn't working, and the only radios we could hear was two from argentina. and the air, there was a smell to sulfur that you wouldn't believe it.
and we waited.
so finally the day came and we came back to the house, i don't have say that when we run away we left all of our belongings there, so we came back and grab all of our stuff, and we left. the problem was that we were almost out of gas, and we couldn't find any working gas station, so we came back to the house, wich i have to say it got into my nerves, i wanted to get out of there so badly, i was about to start crying. and then a huge aftershock came and my brother said "that's it, we're out of here".
and we went to the only working gas station in miles, in wich you had to wait nearly an hour for your turn.
then finally we had gas and we head out of town.
you see, where we were you had two options, a road with an ocean view or a mountain road. the thing is that in the radio station, the radio were back, they were saying that the best option to get to santiago was for Autopista el sol, and to get there we had to go by the road with the ocean view.
but we took a risk and went the other way, and to tell you the truth, the road resisted the quake really good. so we finally we were on our way to Santiago.
once we got to the city we could see some of the damage, and i was impress. so after the little destruction tour we got to my brother's girlfriend house, where i could finally talk with my mom. in paula's house, that's my brother's girlfriend, they had water and light, so i could charge my phone that was out of battery.
i wanted to be on the road right away, i wanted to go to my house but the roads were imposible. i think you all saw the pics on the news, so i had to spend the night there. at least i was with my brother.
the first night after the quake was awful, the aftershocks were really stressful and i was scared. and the images in the news weren't helping. the devastation was too much, the missing persons, the houses on the ground, people sleeping on the streets, thousand of people without water and food.
those are images that will be stuck in my head for many night to come.
long story short, the next day we made it to rancagua, made it to my house with my mom and dad. the road was in bad shape, like really really bad shape, but we made it.
thank god my family is ok, even those who live next to concepción, where the quake hits worse, and my friends are fine too. my house is in one piece and so do i.
too bad i can't say the same of my grandpa' house. my mom told me it's in really bad shape, so bad that nobody can go in there, so demolition is going to happen.
and here i am. i'm ok but really scared.
i still don't know how my apartment in santiago is after the quake. maybe next week i'll go there.
so everything is slowly getting back to normal, in places like santiago and rancagua, but there's others where is going to take them years to get back to normal.
if you can help, please do :)
and thank u to all of you who sent PM asking for me and the ones who posted on my entries post-earthquake.
thank u.
as you all know last february 27 Chile was hit by a major earthquake of 8.8.
i can't not explain the devastation we're living here in Chile, but you all can imagine what an earthquake and a tsunami can do to a country. lots of cities and towns next to the ocean were destroyed or simply they're not there anymore.
i don't think that i've been this scared in my entire life. it was an awful experience.
i was at the house beach of my brother's girlfriend, i just got there on Thursday. anyway, the whole day was weird, i don't know, the sky was weird, even our mood wasn't the best.
so, the quake hits at 3:35 or something like that, and we were outside having some drinks, and i have to say that i was really sleepy, actually i wanted to go to bed, but the guys didn't let me, so i stayed there, listening to whatever they were talking about.
at 3:30, i think, i went to the bathroom and when i went out one of my brother's friend caught me on the hallway, and we started to talk, i was leaning on a wall.
so, we were talking when i felt the house was shaking, i told him "the house is shaking" and we stare at each other but we both thought it was something little. but then his girlfriend started to shout from outside "hon, come here!" so i stayed there, and then everything started to shook more and more. my brother started to shout my name and i run outside. we were all together when the ground started to shake with this unbelievable force, and then the lights went out, it was there when i started to panic, it was like a "the world is going to end" movie. so, the light went out and you could see flashes of light outside on the street, later i found out it was the street lights blowing up.
it was so long... and the sound of glass breaking, the glasses, plates and whatever it was inside the house, it was so scary. and one of the guys was so scared that started to pray out loud, asking to god to keep us safe, 'cause frankly i thought the house was going to fall down over our heads. actually i'm still nervous writing this.
finally everything went quiet, the only thing we could hear was the alarms of some cars.
everybody, my friends and i, started to say that it was an earthquake, and we were all worried about our families. but then it hits us, we were right next to the ocean, so in less than 5 minutes we were all in the cars heading for higher ground.
one of the girls was crying, my brother's girlfriend was holding to my arm like if her life depended of it. the roads were full of people running away from a possible tsunami. so we got to a toll plaza, 'cause we knew they'll have light and bathrooms.
and we waited there, until daylight came.
i have to say, nobody knew anything, the radios wasn't working, and the only radios we could hear was two from argentina. and the air, there was a smell to sulfur that you wouldn't believe it.
and we waited.
so finally the day came and we came back to the house, i don't have say that when we run away we left all of our belongings there, so we came back and grab all of our stuff, and we left. the problem was that we were almost out of gas, and we couldn't find any working gas station, so we came back to the house, wich i have to say it got into my nerves, i wanted to get out of there so badly, i was about to start crying. and then a huge aftershock came and my brother said "that's it, we're out of here".
and we went to the only working gas station in miles, in wich you had to wait nearly an hour for your turn.
then finally we had gas and we head out of town.
you see, where we were you had two options, a road with an ocean view or a mountain road. the thing is that in the radio station, the radio were back, they were saying that the best option to get to santiago was for Autopista el sol, and to get there we had to go by the road with the ocean view.
but we took a risk and went the other way, and to tell you the truth, the road resisted the quake really good. so we finally we were on our way to Santiago.
once we got to the city we could see some of the damage, and i was impress. so after the little destruction tour we got to my brother's girlfriend house, where i could finally talk with my mom. in paula's house, that's my brother's girlfriend, they had water and light, so i could charge my phone that was out of battery.
i wanted to be on the road right away, i wanted to go to my house but the roads were imposible. i think you all saw the pics on the news, so i had to spend the night there. at least i was with my brother.
the first night after the quake was awful, the aftershocks were really stressful and i was scared. and the images in the news weren't helping. the devastation was too much, the missing persons, the houses on the ground, people sleeping on the streets, thousand of people without water and food.
those are images that will be stuck in my head for many night to come.
long story short, the next day we made it to rancagua, made it to my house with my mom and dad. the road was in bad shape, like really really bad shape, but we made it.
thank god my family is ok, even those who live next to concepción, where the quake hits worse, and my friends are fine too. my house is in one piece and so do i.
too bad i can't say the same of my grandpa' house. my mom told me it's in really bad shape, so bad that nobody can go in there, so demolition is going to happen.
and here i am. i'm ok but really scared.
i still don't know how my apartment in santiago is after the quake. maybe next week i'll go there.
so everything is slowly getting back to normal, in places like santiago and rancagua, but there's others where is going to take them years to get back to normal.
if you can help, please do :)
and thank u to all of you who sent PM asking for me and the ones who posted on my entries post-earthquake.
thank u.