Chile Puede

March 18, 2010
7 min read

Contributing Blogger Cathy Healy arrived in Santiago, Chile a week after the earthquake struck on February 27th, and reports on how the city is recovering.

Santiago, Chile — I saw a broken window yesterday. That’s a first. I’ve been commuting all week from the glass-sheathed high-rises of “Sanhattan” to give presentations and training at the Chile-North America Institute in the center of the old city.

My head knows that Santiago suffered one of the strongest earthquakes in history on February 27, but my eyes can’t believe it. I’ve see only a few signs of damage during my commute and while sightseeing last weekend, even though everyone I’ve met either thought they were going to die, or were scared to death. The official count in this city of 7 million is that 480 buildings are uninhabitable, including, I’ve heard, the national library and the main building of the University of Chile.

Every building that I’ve been in had some cracks in some walls along the ceilings, or, in the case of Confiterìa Torres, which claims to be the oldest restaurant in Santiago (1876), a piece of plaster fell from the ceiling. But…the restaurant’s enormous gold-gilt mirror remained in place and only one bottle was broken in the seductively lighted wall display of liquor and wine behind the bar.

I arrived in Santiago from Mendoza, Argentina, six days after the earthquake. Although the U.S. State Department warns against non-essential travel until April 11, I had trainings scheduled that I wanted to give, and my friends in Santiago told me that life had returned to semi-normal, despite the strong aftershocks. Ironically, I had just started this blog for IT when the tremors hit. I kept writing:

OH! I feel a tremor at this very moment on the 14th floor apartment where I’m staying with friends. My hands are shaking and the building is shaking and I’m trying not to be scared, but I am.

I was so scared that when the trio of 6.9 to 7.2 aftershocks stopped, I raced to go soak my hot, sweaty hands in cold water. Then, life continued, semi-normal. (To put things in context, the recent earthquake in Haiti was also a 7.2.)

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Last weekend, I hired a taxi driver to take me to the hardest hit barrios where the quake had collapsed some old houses and shoddy-concrete structures that violated the country’s strict building codes. I saw some tents in parks and apartment yards. I saw a banner complaining about no water and electricity. I saw streets of bungalows, two to three per block which had small piles of broken wood and plaster on the curbs.

The Concepciòn region to the south was devastated by the 8.8 quake and ensuing tsunami. Volunteers on the streets and in the malls are collecting money for the victims. I donate, too, and I’m awed, too, like the Chileans, that the damage elsewhere was so contained. In the earthquake of 1985 (8.0), with its epicenter near Valparaíso, the port of Santiago, my friends tell me that one million people were left homeless. Today, in comparison, the newspapers are saying 11,000 families in Greater Santiago are homeless. This is a miracle of foresight and engineering.

Condos in Santiago

For 30 years I’ve been writing that everyone must experience Chile at least once in their lifetime because Chile is the land of exaggerations. I once saw a 360° sunset in the Atacama Desert, the driest place on earth outside of Antarctica. The temperate rain forests near Puerto Montt in the south get 2 1/2 times as much rain as the Amazon and you feel like you’re in Lord of the Rings. Santiago, which fronts the highest mountain outside the Himalayas, offers one of the most dramatic drives imaginable.

Last Sunday, my friends and I corkscrewed up the 60 switchbacks that go from Santiago, elevation 1,706 feet, up to the dizzying heights of Valle Nevado, elevation 9,925 feet. The French-designed ski area overlooks the capital city below, but from here, you still can’t see Aconcagua, elevation 22,849 feet, which is tucked away behind other mountains. (Aconcagua is nearly 13,000 feet higher than Valle Nevado; in comparison, the highest peaks in Colorado top out at about 14,400 feet.)

Enroute, we stopped the car to watch three condors soaring above us and we stopped again to watch the condors circling below. We continued on up for a leisurely late summer lunch on the deck at La Fourchette (right), which, like most of the Valle Nevado hotels and condos, hangs out over the precipices.

Damage from the quake? A lot of bottles broke in the bar, said our waiter. That was cleaned up right away. There are some cracks in the plaster; they’re being repaired. No, his home wasn’t damaged. The problem wasn’t the earthquake, he said. It was the tsunami. “Thanks to God, we’re not on the ocean.”

“Chile Puede” (Chile Can Do It) is hung on cars and signs throughout the country. When you come here, you’ll understand why.

Photos: Cathy Healy

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