Hundreds of traumatized Chileans spent a second night out in the open or in shelters on Thursday night after an offshore magnitude 8.3 earthquake left 12 dead.
In the coastal city of Coquimbo, the wrath of the earth’s twitch in the quake-prone country was clear and ugly: A jumble of fishing boats, remains of homes, trucks, vendors’ stands and cars washed up by tsunami waves bore testament to the sea’s fury.
Maria Zamorano, 60, recounted how she and her large family ran from the shoreline to save themselves from the surging waves.
Photo: AFP
“If we had stayed here, we would have perished,” she said, as people slowly and warily returned to see what was left of their homes.
The town is about 445km north of the capital, Santiago.
The earthquake on Wednesday evening was the sixth strongest in the history of Chile and the most powerful anywhere in the world this year, officials said.
Close to 1 million people were evacuated from Pacific coastal areas as a precaution, as Chile sounded a tsunami alert, with warnings issued as far away as Japan and New Zealand.
As of Thursday, most of the evacuees had returned home, but Chilean Minister of the Interior Jorge Burgos said that about 600 people remained in shelters or elsewhere and that about 650 homes were damaged, mainly in Coquimbo.
The quake occurred at a shallow depth and the epicenter was 228km north of Santiago, a city of 6.6 million people, where there were scenes of pandemonium as thousands fled swaying buildings.
In the hours that followed, tsunami waves of up to 4.5m came crashing onshore in the Coquimbo region, causing extensive damage to the region’s port. Eight of the 12 victims were in Coquimbo.
Scenes of destruction also littered the badly hit coastal town of Illapel, further south.
“It was a nightmare,” Maria Ramirez said as she swept up debris outside her house. “We felt the tremors for a long time, too long. And then all the aftershocks — it was terrible. “I couldn’t stay standing, but luckily we made it out alive.”
Chilean President Michelle Bachelet headed to the quake-hit area to assess the relief efforts and US Secretary of State John Kerry said the US was ready to help.
Hundreds of homes were declared uninhabitable or destroyed, as authorities tally the human, emotional and financial cost.
Chile lies on what is known as the “Ring of Fire” — an arc of fault lines that circles the Pacific Basin and is prone to frequent earthquakes and volcanic eruptions.
In February 2010, a magnitude 8.8 quake off the southern Chilean coast killed more than 500 people and inflicted an estimated US$30 billion in damage.
In Illapel, a town of 30,000, daybreak revealed the damage done, with power knocked out, shacks destroyed, store shelves overturned and the local cemetery a chaos of broken crosses, vases and coffins.
“It was the most horrific moment, a terrible thing,” resident Ana Cortes, 35, said. “Everything just kept moving, for the longest time.”
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