Chile Earthquake - Tsunami Reconnaissance Day 7

After three days of no internet, I’ve got a lot to do to catch up.

Tuesday March 30
Left Concepción and headed north. We wanted to spend a day in Talcahuano but our time is too short and I figure that many other teams will work there. Talcahuano is Chile’s largest port and I know the COPRI team that should arrive next week will probably spend most of their time in that area. Still it would have been interesting to see the impacts on a major port. Driving north around the Bahia de Concepción we first went to Tome, a fishing/tourist town on the south facing part of the bay. The tsunami had very little impact – reaching only a few meters in height and causing almost no damage to structures. Tome did have tsunami evacuation route signs. The signs were jointly funded by the town and the local school and school children helped to install the signs. Some signs even have the name of the school sponsor written on them.

Then up and over the hill to the town of Dichato on a north facing bay only a few miles away from Tome. The picture was entirely different. Over 80% of the town was demolished, and only the buildings on the higher hills were spared. In one area, the tsunami had swept inland about 2 miles depositing a boat in a large field. Up till now, we’ve seen little tsunami damage. We’ve spent most of our time talking with officials and eyewitnesses outside of the tsunami zone. Dichato was walking into ground zero – and for Troy, Nick and Pancho, their first experience of major tsunami devastation. I never get used to it – seeing marks of impact or debris in trees 15 or 20 feet high and the strewn remnants of peoples lives on the ground, in trees, and in the water. The tsunami in Dichata did not level all structures like the 2004 tsunami in Aceh – a number of stronger structures were still standing but had you been even on the second floor, you wouldn’t have survived because the water was too high. We don’t know the official death toll in Dichato – the Chilean government is still sorting through the numbers and won’t release the data until all possibilities of double counting and trying to locate the missing is completed. We talked to a number of survivors and their perception was that most residents knew tto go to high ground. Some people had experienced the 1960 earthquake as children. It was centered further south but they remembered the ground shaking very clearly. The 1960 tsunami was fairly small in Dichato, and one person refused to evacuate this time on the basis that the 1960 tsunami wasn’t very big. Bad decision – he didn’t survive. Past experience can be a hindrance if you expect the next event to be exactly like the last. We talked to the owner of a small hotel who told us that the magnitude of the earthquake was really 9.2 and the government was saying it was an 8.8 in order to avoid paying more damage costs. It was his contention that if the magnitude were over 9, the Chilean government would be required to pay for all of the damages to both public and private property. I heard very similar stories back in 1994 when I was doing an intensity study of the Northridge earthquake and people told us that the US government made sure the magnitude was below 7 because over 7 meant FEMA would be required to pay out more.

After Dichato we left the coast, driving on narrow, winding roads very reminiscent of the Sonoma or Mendocino coast. The towns were small and had many badly damaged adobe structures. At Buchupureo the volunteer fire department pulled their two fire engines out after the earthquake, sounded the sirens and drove around the town picking people up and taking them to high ground. Further north, Curanipe was a camp ground tragedy. According to a surfer we talked to, there were nearly 500 people camping and many were swept away. He saw at least 30 bodies laid out in the church afterwards. The campgrounds was located at the edge of town close to the coast and, unlike Iloca, no one tried to notify the campers. An added complication – the campground was located in a grove of trees and the earthquake knocked limbs down. Some of the campers went to the beach to get away from the hazard of tree fall.

We ended the day at Pelluhue – a gorgeous beach town that was very hard hit. Our hotel is on a bluff about 60 feet high overlooking the ocean and the devastation. It’s a surreal view – calm ocean, lovely sunset, smashed houses and front end loaders picking up debris.