Ellelein and Daniel Kirk, mission partners in Chile(Photo: © SAMS/CMS)Mission partners Daniel and Ellelein Kirk, based in the coastal town of Vina del Mar, west of the capital Santiago, watched the sea go out three times the normal distance as panic spread about tsunamis
The death toll is rising as they are finding more bodies and seeing the damage beyond the main cities affected.
Thankfully we are OK here, although down in Viña there was a lot more breakage of things in houses as the houses there are built on sand rather than rock.
Most of the shops down in nearby Renaca are closed as they are clearing up debris but as far as I know there has been no loss of life in greater Valparaiso.
Schools won’t be going back this week (today was going to be the start of the new academic year).
One lady gave a testimony at church (most churches were closed yesterday and I just discovered that our service was illegal as there shouldn't have been any public meetings inside buildings for 72 hours – to avoid panic I presume) that she has a son near the epicentre and the small tsunami washed away the whole village. He and his pregnant wife were OK but lost their house and everything.
The pastor’s retreat for all the staff in the Anglican church of Chile for next week has just been cancelled so that the Church can organise some relief to the Concepción area.
The other news that has just emerged is that there will be a ‘toque de queda’ (curfew) in the 7th region where Concepción and the epicentre was. There has been so much robbery (not just of food but of anything that is in shops) that the army has moved lots of troops into the region and this curfew has just started at 8pm and continues to 12am tomorrow.
Just heard the news that there have been some armed bands attacking houses outside Concepción and looting them which also explains the curfew. Soldiers have orders to warn folk once and if they don’t stop shoot to kill.
Here in Viña the sea went out yesterday about three times the distance than it usually does and in a busy supermarket near the coast the rumour spread that a Tsunami was coming and suddenly everyone abandoned the place fleeing to try and find higher ground. Shopping carts were abandoned all over the place but there were a fair number of folk who just didn’t pay and walked out with their trolleys full taking advantage of the chaos.
So please pray for those who have lost everything, those who have lost loved ones and that violence and theft won’t escalate.
Thankfully Chile has economic reserves to recover and rebuild (which is why they also weathered the economic crisis last year remarkably well) as well as an organized system of aid relief so what with the better infrastructure and the better state of the Chilean economy things here are much better than in Haiti.