On February 27, 2010 God shouted down upon middle Chile, sending a ripple of 8.8 magnitude throughout the towns, structures and fields. 80 per cent of Chilean inhabitants felt the wrath of his mighty voice. It even awakened the dormant sea, which then licked the earth and swallowed buildings whole. Blackness consumed 93 per cent of the nation's population and lasted for several days in some locations. The force was so strong that seismologists estimate that 1.26 microseconds disappeared from one of God's six days of hard work.
As we sat in the office months later, my student told me about one of his Jumbo supermarket managers who had died during one of the consecutive Tsunamis that began to hit numerous coastal towns of Chile just some 30 minutes after the initial shock.
Jumbo supermarkets offer its cliental fresh bakery each morning as well as various daily product specials. This requires a small selection of Jumbo staff members to come into work in the small hours of the morning. After having experienced the earthquake late at night, the manager of Jumbo in the town of Constitución fretted about his employees and so he set off from his home, located about half an hour from town, to check up on them.
Little did he know as he drove along the highway that curved around the coastal edge of Chile that a giant wave was approaching. Before he could escape, he was engulfed by the combining elements of both water and land. As the wave drew back into the ocean so did the dear Manager draw his last breathe.
He was later found still within his car buried 3 metres deep into the ground, for the water and land mix had solidified, encasing numerous people and their belongings.
And he was only going out to check up on his daybreak staff members...
Today I hear many remnants of stories but as I look out the window of the bus each day on the way to class, I can see little evidence of the tragedy this country experienced so little ago. That is not to say that Santiago was not affected, as that would be a blatant lie. No, it is more appropriate to say that Santiaguinos have shown fantastic effort in continuing their lives as per normal. Sure, you might turn the wrong way in the corridor of an apartment complex and see a great big gaping hole in the wall or you might enter a house and it looks like a dinosaur has ripped his claws through its inside, but out on the street, the flower beds have been re-planted and the statues turned the right way up.
It just amazes me what people can do if they just put on a brave face, even if they are at the mercy of the almighty God.
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