Five hours after the Chilean earthquake hits and hundreds of miles away from the epicenter, Heather Dennis finally finds out about the 8.8-magnitude quake, a disaster she entirely missed.
Alerts about the catastrophe had traveled across the globe immediately after it hit at 3:30 a.m. on Feb. 27, yet the news is only just reaching Dennis’s hostel, via a friend’s iPhone. The friend hadn’t heard about the disaster yet either; he just received a text message from his father, who was in the Netherlands. As a participant of the University of California Education Abroad Program, Dennis is spending a semester in Santiago, Chile, immersing herself in Spanish and exploring a different culture. Many of the UC students had not expected this kind of disaster while studying abroad.
This surreal, removed quality of the quake echoed among many students, who had been traveling around South America and had no comprehension of an event that seemed farther from them than it did to people in the U.S. As members of UC EAP, the students were on break after recently finishing an intensive language program, but classes were to start in four days. However, the Santiago airport was closed after the quake, so their flights were canceled or delayed. While some students were in Santiago and actually felt the earthquake, others were far away and thus not physically affected or witness to most of the damages.
“I didn’t know what had happened until the next day when I turned on the news while I was eating breakfast,” said Annie Nguyen, a third-year psychology student. “I was like, “˜Are you serious?’ I couldn’t believe what was happening.”
Both students had been traveling around Patagonia, a region that includes Chile and Argentina. Dennis was in Puerto Natales, a city that is a day and a half’s travel away from where the quake hit.
Nguyen was in Punta Arenas, even further down south. Maggie Sosnowski, a third-year international development studies student, was in Rio de Janeiro, so she did not experience any utility outages or other repercussions.
“Being so far away I felt so helpless,” Sosnowski said in a written message. “I read the news multiple times daily and feel like such an outsider to the country that has been home for the last eight months.”
After finally learning about the catastrophe, students moved quickly to get back to Santiago. Many students spent a lot of time contacting airlines and trying to reschedule so they would be back in time for the new semester.
Dennis caught a flight back to Santiago on March 2 and encountered a unique airport setting. Luggage was set on the tarmac for passengers to find. They had to walk around the airport instead of going in, and take a bus back to the city because there was no taxi or car access.
“It was one of the strangest airport experiences I’ve ever had in my life,” Dennis said.
Some people got back just a few days ago, while others, Nguyen said, are still stuck in southern cities. The start of classes has been delayed until March 8, said Ines DeRomana, principal analyst of safety, security and health affairs at the UC Education Abroad Program system-wide office.
Now back in the capital, students are adjusting to a relatively ordinary lifestyle. While Nguyen saw some damaged streets and a few buildings with crumbled walls and stairs, almost everything else was fine.
“(For) people, specifically in Santiago where I’m going to be, it seems like life is sort of quote-unquote normal because there’s still food around, there’s electricity, there’s internet, so where we’re living is not as bad as where some people are right now,” Nguyen said.
While some of the EAP participants did not expect to encounter any sort of natural disaster during their time abroad, they expressed confidence in the country’s rebuilding efforts.
“People move fast in Chile ““ it’s a very united country,” Dennis said. “They have a lot of pride in their country so they’re going to do everything they can to get it back to where it was.”