A little too shaken up

I wanted to take a quick minute to update everyone after last night's earthquake. Everyone here, my family, fellow volunteers, all of Arica and myself is fine. Yesterday night around 8:30 pm there was an earthquake of 8.2 magnitude off the coast of northern Chile. Luckily we were all at home, minus Boris who works in safety and evacuation here in Arica, when a tremor started. I had just gone upstairs and as the tremor escalated ran downstairs, by the time I was halfway down the shaking made it incredibly difficult to make it down. The family was huddled under the doorframe to the dining area, right next to the metal spiral staircase I stood under with grandpa, and in traditional Chilen Catholic fashion saying the Lord's Prayer while we waited for the quake to stop. Then everyone ran for their go bags, something I had not yet prepped but have now, and we evacuated. I live in the middle area of Arica, still classified as tsunami zone, though no tsunami has ever reached this far. Something grandpa pointed out, as he stubbornly told us he would be staying. Boris met us and joined the thousands of people in the street headed to the safety zone. Martina and I sang songs and played games the whole way, which honestly took both of our minds off how scary it really was. We were lucky enough to have family friends who live in the safety zone and so we walked the mile and a half to their house, where Boris left to go back to work, and we huddled around a half functional emergency radio and flashlight in our sleeping bags listening for updates until we all drifted off. The rest of the night was full of aftershocks, according to the news about 90, though for the most part they have been so faint it would be easy to confuse them for a truck driving by. This morning we woke to find that most of Arica was just as it was before the quake, with minimal damage, only buildings made of adobe fell, obviously mud is not earthquake proof. We went back to the house at 9 this morning and were lucky enough to have electricity and internet so I could call home. Then our water was cut for a few hours. And right when Vladimir came to use our internet because his area still had no electricity, it died. But the water came back. Can't win them all.

As I was finishing this entry last night, which means the part above refers to two nights ago, we had another earthquake, 7.6, and evacuated again. This one turned out to be a big aftershock from the previous, and after five hours of evacuation we all returned home. Needless to say things are a bit too shaken up here for anyone's liking and now we are out of school until Monday. It is an unreal experience to come from an area with almost no natural disasters, to one where everyone is constantly prepared for a couple. And though I'm not a fan of either, I think I'd prefer the tsunami. At least those comes with a warning.