Round the corner...: Helping in a different way. Passing on the positive.

An update received from my brother and sister-in-law who are currently living in Santiago.

"Thank you for your thoughts and prayers. We would like to thank all the persons who have written to express their support to us and the Chilean people in this time of tragedy. We share in the tremendous grief felt by the people of Chile for their country and those who lost loved ones.

The Santiago area, while impacted by the quake, experienced relatively minor damage compared to the areas near the epicenter. Things are quickly returning to normal in Santiago. Power was restored within 5 hours of the earthquake in the main business and tourist district, telecommunications were restored soon after. Supermarkets, gas stations, restaurants and shopping malls began opening on Monday. All Metro lines are running and the airport has begun operating on a 24 hour basis and is predicted to return to normal schedule by next Monday.

The response of the government has been efficient and well coordinated and they have dedicated unlimited resources to their efforts. Aid from foreign countries also began arriving today. Given its strong economy and fiscal discipline Chile has a tremendous revenue surplus to provide needed assistance. Chile is a strong, well developed country and outside of the Concepcion and Maule regions the damage was much less severe. The situation here is much different than what happened in Haiti. Chile, with a history of many strong earthquakes, has very strict building codes and Santiago, a city of 6 million, withstood any catastrophic damage. Sadly, many older homes and those which did not comply with the building codes, in the poorer parts of the city, were damaged. Chile will hopefully recover quickly from this tragedy but will mourn the loss of their loved ones always.

We hope for better reporting in the presentation of Chile’s current situation. As expected, the international media has focused only on the most severely damaged areas. They have done this without clear indications of the geography of a country that is 2,800 miles long. This has led to confusion and much unnecessary worry regarding the 6 million people in Santiago where very few people were injured. The major damages are 3 to 5 hours south of Santiago where, sadly, there were many deaths and there are many people still missing or trapped in buildings.

It is also unfortunate that the US government has recommended not traveling to Chile for tourism. Approximately 5% of the Chilean economy is based on tourism. The best way to help the people of Chile is to make sure that the world is correctly informed that Chile is open for business despite the country’s current effort to restore the areas affected by the earthquake. The main tourist destinations San Pedro de Atacama in the north, Patagonia in the south and Easter Island were unaffected by the earthquake. People should consider Chile very safe to visit once the Santiago airport is fully operational in the coming week.

If you would like to offer your assistance to Chile earthquake relief, please donate to the Red Cross which has committed to assisting Chile with their relief efforts www.redcross.org."

Following are photos taken by my brother a day after the quake.

La Moneda
The Presidential Palace