Earthquake: Safe and Sound

Thank you everyone for your concern, it really shows how much support I have back home.  Yes, there was an earthquake here in Chile last night.  Fortunately, the epicenter was much farther north, but my city is close enough that it was still pretty strong.  At the epicenter it reached 8.3 on the Richter scale, and there were tsunami warnings up and down the coast, but my city suffered minimal damage and was not evacuated.  Overall, we had it pretty good in Talca.  The shaking was a lot stronger in Santiago, and my friends on the coast all had to leave their homes until the water subsided.  Here is my story.

Yesterday I arrived home after school like normal, had a snack, and was mostly just killing time until my host parents got home from work and I would go to my friend's birthday party.  All of a sudden, I heard this sound, like a tap-tap-tap.  My first thought was that it was the dog coming up the wooden stairs, but then the door began to move in its hinges, and I realized that the sound was coming from the side of the desk hitting the wall.

Everything began to shake: the bed, the lamp, the chair.  The dogs barked. The walls creaked.  

When I stood up, the floor moved below me like the deck of a boat gently rocking from side to side.  I had never experienced anything like it, and I hope I never have to again.  In a split second I grabbed my coat (winter, remember?) and phone and carefully went down stairs and out into the driveway, Gari the dog still barking at my heels.

Outside, on the ground level, the shaking was less sway-like and a bit stronger than it felt upstairs.  I was surprised by how long the shaking lasted, 2 or 3 minutes, which is uncommon, even in Chile.

The first aftershock was almost as strong as the first quake, but didn't last as long.  The next were virtually imperceptible.

Both of my parents were at work, so it was I think the solitude that scared me the most.  I was worried that I had done something wrong, or made some mistake in my evacuation procedure.  I tried calling but neither answered.  All of a sudden, after the ground settled down, my phone began blowing up.  My extended Chilean family, and my classmates, were all checking up on me, and each other, verifying the security of their family and friends.  Multiple people offered to come pick me up so I didn't have to be alone, and reassured me that the seemingly impossible movement of Earth was a part of life in Chile.

After the tremors stopped, life moved on.  I went to a birthday party, and we just socialized, danced, and ate like friends do.  Of course everyone shared their earthquake stories (one of my friends was on the toilet when it began to rock back and forth).

At about 1:00 am (party still going strong), a New Zealand radio station found me on facebook and called me to get some first hand comments about the quake.

Reporter: "So what's it like outside now?"
Me: "Ummm there's a 15-hour time difference between us, so its 1:00 am.  Most everyone is asleep"
Reporter: "Oh."

They did not use my comments in the broadcast, but it was fun nonetheless.

Shaken, not stirred,
Max