Solidarity Seen Among
Tsunami Survivors, Rescuers in Chile
CONCEPCION, Chile - Rescuers arrived in Bio
Bio to encounter a completely different
scenario from what they saw in downtown
Concepcion.
"In earthquakes, buildings collapse and
people remain trapped inside; but in
tsunamis, buildings move and their residents
swept away," said Manuel Munoz.
The deputy police investigator, who heads a
12-men rescue team made up of naval
personnel, police officers and
non-governmental organization staffers, has
been put in charge of finding survivors and
identifying victims in the far-off suburbs
of Concepcion.
What Munoz's contingent faced with in Bio
Bio was a town partly washed away by the
tsunami immediately following the Feb. 27
earthquake measuring 8.8 on the Richter
scale.
Apart from the 16 confirmed deaths, there
are still 40 people reported as missing when
the rescuers arrived.
"Three hundred houses were destroyed, or
more than half of the town," said Munoz who
pointed to a partial house on top of tons of
flotsam in what used to be the center of Bio
Bio.
"That could have come from anywhere within a
kilometer of here."
Inside a makeshift morgue turned from a
container thrown in to the town center by
tsunami waves, Munoz took the fingerprints
of the deceased for ID purposes. His
examining table was one salvaged from what
remained of a home.
"My dad and my sister died in this car,"
said Marcelo Ortiz, placing plastic flowers
on the bonnet of a grayish vehicle." They
came back to drive it but were swept away
with it when the waves came in again."
Seventy-seven-year-old Leon, a music
professor, and 33-year-old Valeria had been
warned to evacuate their car as the seashore
receded six kilometers to the ocean to
indicate a major tsunami, according to
eyewitnesses.
But after two colossal tides of invading
waves at 3 a.m and 5 a.m., the father and
daughter thought it to be safe and they
returned to the car at 7 a.m.
"My dad was only able to push my mom out of
the side window which was luckily open at
the time (when the third wave came in),"
said Marcelo who felt especially sorry for
his sister who was getting married this year
and had so much to live for.
The fiance, Andre Almona Cid, added how his
cousins manage to free themselves from the
same doomed car before floating on cushions
to peddle to rooftops and finally landing on
firm soil again.
But two of his cousins are still unaccounted
for and presumed dead from the tsunamis.
Marcelo's mother swam in churning waves for
more than two hours before being saved and
sent to a local hospital for pneumonia
caused by sea water entering her lungs. |
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