TERRE HAUTE — A local college professor said all is as well as can be expected in Chile after last month’s magnitude-8.8 earthquake rocked the South American country off its feet.
Associated Press reports detailed Friday that aftershocks ranging from 5.1 to 7.2 have continued to plague the country.
“The earthquake and tsunami created a terrible catastrophe for the areas most affected, but the country as a whole will be able to cope, given some international resources,” Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology professor Samuel Martland e-mailed the Tribune-Star from Santiago on Monday. “It's a lot like Hurricane Katrina, where there was a large area of devastation, but a much larger area that was able to help.”
Martland, associate professor of history and Latin American studies at Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology, arrived in Santiago on Thursday, Feb. 25 as a visiting professor at the Pontificia Universidad Catolica de Chile.
Saturday morning, an earthquake registering magnitude 8.8 would strike as he, his wife and children were just settling in for what will be the Southern Hemisphere’s fall semester.
Martland explained that the “summer vacation” was just ending for the South American school and the fall semester was to have begun the first week of March. Instead, many classes were delayed until this week.
“Some schools and universities are heavily damaged, especially in the BioBio and Maule regions but also some schools here in Santiago, so there will be greater delays and/or special measures like doubling up or using temporary classrooms,” he wrote.
Martland and his family plan to remain in Chile through the term’s completion Aug. 13.
“There are four of us all together, and they are fine,” he wrote of his family, adding that they are staying with colleagues for now. “I think they are a little scared or worried as they get to understand what happened. Sometimes my daughter sees pictures or TV coverage and looks shocked – but then we all do, because seeing a building lying on its side or a huge cargo ship left on dry land by a 60-foot wave is shocking. Hearing the stories of the victims, on TV and from their relatives who we see every day, is also shocking. I’ve felt like crying sometimes, especially, for some reason, after going to the bank and making a deposit in the special bank account for aid donations,” he wrote.
Banks and government offices are open and conducting business, he wrote, adding that he was surprised at “the general lack of price gouging here in Santiago.”
Likewise, crime and looting seemed to be relatively low following the disaster.
“The outpouring of help, the Chilean flags on many houses, signs on cars that say ‘Chile ayuda a Chile’ (Chile helps Chile), are a much more noticeable reaction,” he wrote.
The country is still in the initial phases of recovery, but Martland noted that concern is already evident regarding shoddy building practices.
“There are disturbing revelations about incompetent or dishonest contractors who built some of the very new buildings that collapsed or are condemned but that should have survived, or at least not collapsed before people could get out. Some builders weren’t following the building codes or the design specifications,” he wrote. “Some of the companies have begun to admit their wrongdoings and look for ways to pay. Others were considering bankruptcy. Every company that built a new building that did not survive, especially the ones that built buildings that are condemned in Santiago, where the quake was much weaker, are under public attack in the press.”
Overall, Martland said the bulk of the damage was contained to specific areas.
“Chile is a very long country from north to south. The earthquake and tsunami were very serious over a very large area, perhaps 150 miles long (I’m not looking at a map), where they killed many people, destroyed a lot of property, caused temporary breakdown of normal society and order, making this a world-class disaster, but the majority of Chile did not suffer damage. The area south of the disaster area (Puerto Montt, Chiloe Island), and the thinly populated temperate rainforests that gradually blend into the cold regions near and on Tierra del Fuego, are largely unaffected, as is the half of the country north of Santiago (over a thousand miles of progressively drier valleys and mountains between the high Andes and the sea until you get to Peru and Bolivia). Santiago saw some spectacular damage, but it was isolated and the majority of its 6 million or so people are fine and able to help actively with relief according to their means,” he wrote.
Martland will spend his sabbatical from Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology teaching a course on the history of technology in cities to doctoral students while conducting research on 19th-century Chilean history.
Brian Boyce can be reached at 812-231-4253 or brian.boyce@tribstar.com.
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