Big Aftershocks Got Everyone's Attention

Hi All;

We just experienced our first big aftershocks in our Santiago apartment. It was more than enough to get everyone's attention, bringing all the neighbors to their apartment doors just in case we needed to leave the building. The doors rattled, lamps swayed, glasses tingled, and it lasted quite a while - those tectonic plates certainly are readjusting themselves. We were fine, just nervous again! There were two really good size quakes with milder tremors in between...in fact, it was almost hard to tell where one stopped and another started....and then another moderate quake.

We immediately started trying to call our daughter, Skye, who is with her boyfriend on the coast in Zapallar today, but could not get a connection. It turned out that she could not get a connection through to us either. We finally got a hold of her 2 hours later. Skye and Todd didn't feel the quake, but were near the top of an almost island off the coast when the emergency siren went off for about 30 seconds at almost exactly noon. Skye thought it might be a noon whistle, but when they finished climbing to the top of the island they were able to see police cars and other emergency vehicles with lights and sirens. They quickly figured out that it had been a tsunami warning and began assessing whether they were on ground high enough to be out of reach of a possible tsunami. The police evacuated the restaurants along the beach and Skye and Todd sat tight. But when the police came back checking again nearly half an hour later, they sprinted down the island peninsula and directly up a nearby road to higher ground. A man offered them a ride and he took them up to a gas station near the main highway and well out of reach of any possible local tsunami. So Todd, too, is getting a full taste of the Chilean experience.

There were three strong aftershocks amidst intermittent and occasionally nearly constant mild tremors. They hit during the swearing-in ceremony of the new president, Pinera. The USGS originally listed them at 7.2, 6.9 and 6.1 (Haiti was 7.0), but Dick just said that they have now been downgraded to 6.9, 6.7 and 6.1. Way more than enough for me! Rest assured that we are all fine and thankful that we live in a quality building with anti-seismic design.

Take care,

Cheryl