Chile Forum

Hi all, Just spoke to Zandra and Charles in Temuco. My husband and I live in Frutillar - for those of you unfamiliar with this area, we are just north of Puerto Varas. Everything here is normal - we only had a few shakes (felt kind of sea sick), but aside from that no other major problems. Power was back up within 8 hours as was Internet from Telefonica del Sur. The only issue until last night was Claro. We have all the services back to normal.

Per my chat with Zandra and Charles, they have intermittent Internet Access and have asked me to pass the following info along..............

SOUTH OF TEMUCO
Everyone south of Temuco seems perfectly fine and some did not even feel the tremor (thus might not even know what is going on.... if they are camping). Please note, the main towns, cities and tourist areas south of Temuco are: Villlarica, Pucon, Panguipulli, Valdivia, Calbuco, Castro, Chaitén, Chonchi, Cochamo , Curaco de Velez, Dalcahue, Fresia, Frutillar, Futaleufú, Hualaihué, Llanquihue, Los Muermos, Maullín, Osorno, Palena, Puerto Montt, Puerto Octay, Puerto Varas, Puqueldón, Purranque, Puyehue, Queilén, Quellón, Quemchi, Quinchao, Río Negro, San Juan de la Costa, San Pablo, Chile Chico, Cisnes, Cochrane, Coyhaique, Guaitecas, Lago Verde, O´higgins, Río Ibáñez, Tortel, Laguna Blanca, Natales, Porvenir, Primavera, Punta Arenas, Rio Verde, Timaukel......

Temuco
Structural damage - intermittent internet
If you need to get a hold of Zandra or Charles please send SMS to them. If you need to communicate, the best way is SMS......

Airports and International Travel
There has been quite a bit of structural damage to the airport in Santiago and of course Concepcion. Landing strips are fine as is the tower. However, only a few flights are being allowed in/out.
LAN comments: the Company will operate the 17 flights coming from international and national locations that were redirected to alternative airports, as a consequence of the temporary closing of Santiago’s International airport, in accordance with the announcement from Chile's Civil Aviation Authority. LAN had been taking special care of its passengers, allowing them flexibility in changing dates for their flights. For the affected passengers (flights that are not operating as schedule), with ticketed and confirmed flights to and from Santiago de Chile and within Chile, please check LAN website for updates. http://www.lan.com/about_us/noticias/index_contingencia-en-us.html

Highway Travel
If at all possible - DO NOT travel north. The highways north of Temuco to Santiago are very congested and there are alternate routes that have been temporarily set up. Please allow the use of these highways for emergency personnel. If you do not have to go anywhere, please don't.

SOUTH OF TEMUCO
Everyone south of Temuco seems perfectly fine and some did not even feel the tremor (thus might not even know what is going on.... if they are camping). Please note, the main towns, cities and tourist areas south of Temuco are: Villlarica, Pucon, Panguipulli, Valdivia, Calbuco, Castro, Chaitén, Chonchi, Cochamo , Curaco de Velez, Dalcahue, Fresia, Frutillar, Futaleufú, Hualaihué, Llanquihue, Los Muermos, Maullín, Osorno, Palena, Puerto Montt, Puerto Octay, Puerto Varas, Puqueldón, Purranque, Puyehue, Queilén, Quellón, Quemchi, Quinchao, Río Negro, San Juan de la Costa, San Pablo, Chile Chico, Cisnes, Cochrane, Coyhaique, Guaitecas, Lago Verde, O´higgins, Río Ibáñez, Tortel, Laguna Blanca, Natales, Porvenir, Primavera, Punta Arenas, Rio Verde, Timaukel......

We just got internet back. I will post more in a few mins.

I have setup a dedicated forum for the earthquake recovery and reconstruction efforts:

Can I get everyone to move this discussion over to this thread here:
topic3965.html

Nice to know that you, your family and allchile regulars are OK, now you are real all-chilean with the experience of a big terremoto, this is an oblied requirement for every chilean (I have been in several since 1965)

UPDATE from Pirque: I am sorry for no updates but we are still without power, water, telephone and internet. I have traveled into Santiago, by a very surprisingly well maintained Transantiago. I have had to come into the office to charge our cellphones and laptops, it doesn't look like we are getting ours in Pirque back anytime soon, but i look on the bright side, our house is still standing and my wife and 3 kids (our youngest being born on the day of the earthquake in Haiti)

We have added a people finder to our newspaper website http://www.thepulse.cl it is run by Google.

We are working at updating the paper the best we can, but are editor is stuck in Pucon without lights, water and internet and me stuck in Pirque in the same boat. All of our radio and writing staff have now been accounted for and are slowly getting their communications back so we should be able to give more updates.

We have managed to update the online newspaper and we are in the process of updating the Santiago Radio Bulletins. If anyone has any hi-res photos we are doing an entire section of the print newspaper, not on the damage of the quake, but all of our experiences, like where were you. Email me if you want to include yours in the next edition of Chile's only English Language print newspaper The Pulse dan.brewington@thepulse.cl

And I want to thank everyone here at ALL CHILE. NET

Cheers

Dan

I've just seen some pics of Conce and we in Pucon got off lightly. I still have no power, phone, limited cell and this is the only joint with internet in town right now, and it's intermittent. Radio has just crackled into life. (Ecole has power and ENTEL! Long live Ecole). There were 4 hour queues for rationed petrol and only 1 station still has any. Roads semi closed to Temuco.

Here our buildings are still standing, just some chunks in roads where drains should be, some broken glass needed to be swept up and I'm still sleeping with the baby in the car due to all the aftershocks. It was scary. Really really primitive style gut clenching fear - but we are all OK here.

If you're worried about people here, honestly it's most likely that they are fine but can't communicate. Can't charge phones, with power nor credit. Public phones not working. So don't worry and do use the info from Dan and all the social networking sites. Be patient, it's picking itself up again.

Hope this will inspire some proper crisis planning for the volcano(s).

Full respect to the guy at the beach with the generator, selling cold beers. I may have to marry him.

I'm getting tired of these aftershocks. They make my gut clench.

Thoughts to all who lived through, and are continuing to live through, the worst of it.

"go play" we have some land south of pucon and villarica near Lago Caburga, how did this area fair?

chris

No one has had word for EE?

Anyone got phone contacts for him?

We have started a dedicated missing person thread here:
topic3966.html

And a dedicated general thread here:
topic3965.html

Reconstruction effort discussions and assistance goes here:
topic3968.html

I am going to lock this thread, now that I have a chance to get the forum a bit more organized to deal with this.