George Christoff got the wake-up call of his life when a massive earthquake jolted his hotel last weekend.
The Kelowna businessman and former documentary producer had arrived in Santiago, Chile, two days before the 8.8-magnitude temblor struck, killing more than 700 people.
The quake‘s epicentre was less than 600 kilometres away. He sent a vivid account of the tremor and the confusion that followed.
By George Christoff
Special to The Daily Courier
I was staying at a European-style hotel in the Providencia district, a quiet residential area with high-end condominiums in Santiago, a city of about six million.
About 3:30 a.m. on Saturday, I was awakened by the bed shaking and thrown out of bed.
I was on the third floor and got up to see the buildings out the window moving to and fro. I remembered an old educational film I was selling years ago about earthquake safety and stumbled to the door-frame of the bathroom, where I braced myself and held on.
This all happened in about 20 seconds. Funny how you immediately wake up in times like this.The shaking continued for more than a minute at a fierce pace until it started to slow down.
I watched the TV in my room fall over, along with credenzas, chairs and vases. Disaster-warning sirens were blaring. I could hear car alarms, dogs barking and the sounds of falling furniture.
The whole hotel seemed to creak. There seemed to be a deep roar rumbling as the earth shook itself. I pulled on my clothes, grabbed a few things and flew out the door. There was no electricity except for low emergency lights in the hallways.
People were opening their doors, while friends knocked on others to get them going. We all ran downstairs. All of us seemed to know that aftershocks would come.
The hotel staff directed us outside to a little park nearby. Ten minutes later, I felt a large aftershock through the soles of my feet.
People were screaming and crying. Others were out of their apartments, in the park and on the street. Car sirens and alarms rang constantly. There was no traffic. Finally, the sirens and noise seemed to stop.
Some men thought they could go back inside. Wives or girlfriends yelled at them to stay. Someone found a battery-powered radio. The night manager of the hotel pulled his car beside us and turned on his radio. It was full of shouting voices. Finally, he found a station where a woman was speaking in a quiet, calming voice. His English was good and he interpreted for us. We found out it was an 8.0-plus magnitude quake south of Santiago and only a 6- or 7-plus where we were. Little aftershocks continued every couple of minutes.
We stayed outside until 7:30 or 8 a.m., watching the city start to move. Santiago is a modern, first-world city. There‘s a large middle class and a lot of cafes, banks and department stores. The Providencia section of Santiago is comparable to West Vancouver, Montreal‘s Mount Royal or Toronto‘s Rosedale.
More hotel staff came and went inside to prepare some coffee, tea and juice for us. We drank it on the hotel patio. An hour later, we were sitting in the breakfast room talking and eating yogurt when another tremendous aftershock struck. It was really big and lasted about 30 seconds.
Another fellow from Australia and I looked at each other while everyone ran out. We basically said to hell with it (an “if it didn‘t get us the first time,” kind of thing) and sat there looking out the window while our chairs and tables shook. A couple of the local staff stayed with us. By noon, we were allowed back to our rooms. Another aftershock hit while I had an afternoon nap. That night, we all slept in the hotel through more aftershocks. Minor tremors were almost constant. I heard later there were almost 6,000 aftershocks and tremors in the first 24 hours.
There were long lineups outside grocery stores with guards. Shop windows were broken. Sidewalks were cordoned off because debris, air conditioners or cornices could fall. I saw lots of cracks in buildings.
There was less damage in Santiago than other centres because the building code is high. The major damage was to the south, where even earthquake-zone highways and buildings couldn‘t withstand the upheaval.
The Santiago airport was damaged – the departure floors caved in. A Chilean engineer told me it was built on the sand and silt of an old river bed. It made me think of Richmond.
People couldn‘t fly out. All my tours were cancelled and the city was very quiet all weekend. Saturday, especially, seemed like a scene out of a science fiction film.
The port of Valpairaiso, where tourists were to meet their cruise ships, was closed. The ships stayed out in the ocean because of the tsunami warnings.
I‘m in Mendoza, Argentina, now. Everyone goes through that first time when they realize they are really mortal and life can turn on a dime. That happened to me years ago – a couple of times – so I really wasn‘t frightened.
