Earthquake 8.8

Santiago, Chile. Saturday 27.02.2010 3:34am

It was a cold night, exceptionally cold for a Summer night. I was uneasy. I was awake and cold. My nephew (7) and niece (4) were over for the weekend.
I got up and put on warmer clothes, and only a couple a minutes later I heard a sound that came from somewhere deep and far. It got louder and louder, then the windows started rattling, and a deafening sound of drums pierced my ears, the earth started shaking. I thought for a second that it was just a temblor, like the ones we get every once in a while.
The noise grew louder snd the earth started jumping. At that moment, I knew it wasn't just a temblor.
I grabbed my niece and ran with her in my arms towards the living room. On my way there, I opened my mom's door, she was already up holding my nephew. I took my little dog with my free arm and ran to the open area of the house.
The walls were swaying, things were falling from the shelves, the chairs were jumping and moving out of place. The power went out and I saw flashing lights from everywhere. Everything looked red, I still don't know why.

It was two minutes that felt like forever.

I was screaming, gasping. I was scared, not only for my life, but for my niece and nephew who were away from their parents and under my responsibility.
I thought the roof was going to fall on us, the walls.
I screamed "Heavenly Father, please make it stop!!"
At this point, I was almost crying.

Then, it got milder and milder until it stopped.

I collapsed on a chair, still holding my niece tightly.
I was breathing again, but my legs were moving on their own. Shaking.

My nephew suddenly said to my mom "Why did you wake me up?"

My niece said "My leg hurts," I probably hurt her while trying to get out of my room.

I was relieved to know that they hadn't grasped what had just happened to us. I quickly opened the door and I saw my neighbors out with flashlights, asking everyone how they were doing.
Yes, I opened the door after the earth stopped shaking because we were locked in and couldn't find the way to open the door. I was happy when the door opened without having to force it open.

After that, it was a neverending night of darkness, fear and aftershocks. The strongest one came around 7:30am with a magnitude of almost 6 (technically, that is not an aftershock, but an earthquake in itself)

During the night, I was informing my mom of everything that I heard on my Ipod radio. Finally the telephone lines were working close to the morning and we were able to talk to my father who was at the beach (yes, and under threat of receiving a Tsunami), and my brother and sister-in-law who were freaking out. We called a couple of aunts, and everyone was alive.

February 27th was the longest day of my life.
It's only been two days since the earthquake, but I still hear the noise in my ears and I still relive the moment of fear and desolation I felt while everything moved around me.

I'm just thankful that everyone I know is alive and healthy. I still need to hear from some family members in the catastrophe area and some friends in Concepcion. I pray that they are alive, and that we know soon that they are okay.

We haven't had aftershocks today!! The strongest one after the earthquake was yesterday, magnitude 6.6 (yes, another earthquake)


This will be over soon. I know.