Survivor recounts Santiago's post-quake chaos
Kevin Voigt
Eduardo Ravani Jr. was photographing a wedding reception early
Saturday at Las Terrazas dela Reina on the hills overlooking Santiago,
Chile, when the party disc jockey told him: "Hey, I think the building
is moving".
What started as a slow shake grew into a relentless rumble, knocking
Ravani off his feet as screaming guests streamed outside. When Ravani
made it outside, he saw five women had fainted to the ground. The bride
and groom huddled in a tight embrace, the bride crying. Beyond, bright
flashes leapt like lightning from exploding power transformers in the
city below.
Men start with the cleaning-up in the Chilean city of Parral,
340 km south of Santiago, on March 1, 2010 three day after a
huge 8.8-magnitude earthquake rocked the country and killed at
least 711 people. AFP |
"It was like something you see in the movies, one by one, each of the
blocks of the city went dark," said the 36-year-old Santiago man,
speaking by phone to CNN. "It felt like the shaking would never stop,
then all you heard were people crying and the sound of car alarms and
house alarms."
The temblor lasted less than three minutes, but three days later the
events of that day continue to reverberate for Ravani and his family,
shaken both by daily aftershocks and widespread looting.
More than 700 people have died from the earthquake, and Chilean
officials say the toll could climb. Areas of the country were reporting
shortages of food and water, and looters roaming city streets,
authorities said.
A precarious climate hung over Santiago immediately after the quake,
Ravani said. He recounted the days immediately after the quake. A purse
snatcher tried to rob Ravani's wife on Sunday near their home and was
stopped by passersby. "She's been terrified and is afraid to leave the
house," he said.
Ravani saw a mob storm a quake-damaged store as the owner, "a
60-year-old grandmother," shouted and tried to get the looters to stop,
he said.
The quake occurred on the last weekend of the summer holiday in the
South American nation, when many Chileans were away on vacation.
"There are a lot of people who went to the beach and haven't been
able to get back to their homes, so you hear of a lot of empty homes
being broken into," Ravani said.
Ravani himself had little cash as automated teller machines failed
through the weekend; when a neighborhood ATM began working again on
Monday, he had to stand in line an hour to make a withdrawal.
"The main thing people are concerned about are shortages," Ravani
said. He stood in line Monday at a grocery where a woman bought 20
pounds of spaghetti. Lines at his neighborhood gas station were 30 cars
deep Monday.
"The Government says there is no shortage of gas, but you still see
people walking away, filling up plastic containers of gas," Ravani said.
With the quake happening two weeks before the new president takes power,
the credibility of Government statements are sometimes called into
question, he said.
"You hear the old Government say one thing, the incoming president
say something else," he said.
Still, Ravani, a part-time photographer and full-time English
instructor at the Wall Street Institute in Santiago, considers himself
lucky. In the moments after the quake, his thoughts turned to the safety
of his wife, Dora, and their daughters Ayelet, 10, and Francesca, 8.
"After a few minutes, everyone collected themselves, and I drove
home," he said. The typically 10-minute drive took nearly an hour as he
drove through darkened streets, across electrical wires and debris, as
the sirens of emergency vehicles filled the air. When he got to his
apartment, people were milling on the street, as car headlights and
flashlights provided the only light. He searched for his family, but it
was his daughters who first saw him in the strobe of a passing car and
screamed, "Daddy, Daddy, Daddy!"
"They started crying hysterically," Ravani said. "My wife said they
were mute after the earthquake occurred. They had never been through
anything like that before."
On Monday, his daughters were supposed to return to school after
their summer break. "Obviously, that didn't happen," he said.
"More than anything, I'm concerned about the safety of my family, and
my family getting their life back on track." CNN
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