Worst Shake

Precariously perched between the towering Andes and the Pacific, the elongated Republic of Chile runs like a rind along the western coast of South America from the tropics to Cape Horn. Averaging only about 125 miles in width, the country is so long (2,661 miles) that, if draped across Europe, it would stretch from Moscow to Madrid. To compensate for its unwieldy shape, nature has given it a variety of riches: underneath its parched yellow soil in the desolate northern region lie the world's most valuable deposits of nitrate and the second largest known deposits of copper; its pleasant, well-watered, fertile central area, where most of its people live, supplies more wheat, cattle and wine than Chile can use; and its rain-sodden southern provinces are rich in lumber, much of them still virgin territory and inhabited by half-savage Indians.

In return for these riches, mountainous Chile pays a steep price. Situated at one end of the great Pacific earthquake arc* that sweeps around from Borneo and the Philippines, through Japan, Alaska, the U. S. Pacific Coast and down through central and western South America to the Cape, Chile shares honors with Japan as the shakiest region on earth. Of 9,000 big & little quakes & tremors recorded every year, fully 21% occur in Chile. Seismic observers estimate that during the past three centuries Chile has had on the average a serious quake every three years. Last week she was hit again.

Some 250 miles south of the capital, Santiago, lies the historic city of Chillan, founded in 1594 by Spanish Conquistadors and named after a brave chieftain of the fierce and never wholly conquered Araucanian Indians. The town is revered by Chileans because it is the birthplace of their George Washington, Bernardo O'Higgins.* Destroyed by a quake in 1853, it was rebuilt and until last week had a thriving population of 40,000.

Shortly before the stroke of twelve one night last week 300 people were enjoying a movie in Chillan's National Theatre. Suddenly, above the screen voices, came an ominous, familiar rumble. Everyone knew what it meant but before anyone could get to the street, the walls buckled and the roof crashed. Outside in the heaving plaza, heavy brick-walled buildings toppled into the street. The massive front of the Governor's Palace swayed forward, and fell in a cascade on several passing cars. Thousands of rotos and their families, caught in their beds, had no chance to move before their adobe homes fell on them. Thousands more got into the streets only to be buried beneath falling buildings.

In less than three terrible minutes the upheavals had ended. But weakened structures continued to collapse and fires broke out. One heroic youngster, a night watchman at the main power plant, realizing that fallen live wires would electrocute many, rushed into the tottering building, jerked off the switch just as the roof smashed down on top of him.

Broken communication lines, uprooted roads and rail tracks cut the area off from the rest of Chile. Not until amateur radio operators sent out terse pleas for help, did Santiago, where only slight tremors were felt, learn of the damage. At dawn a Government plane headed south to survey the stricken city. What the observers saw sent them speeding back to Santiago.

Not only had Chillan been destroyed; the full force of the quake had torn up a vast, 450-mile-long segment of the narrow nation. Some 20 towns and villages throughout Chile's richest agricultural and mining regions had been leveled. At Concepion, Chile's third largest city, 70% of the buildings were on the ground. Chillan, hardest hit, looked from the air like a mammoth anthill overturned. Its church spires and jagged masonry protruded through the debris. Its surviving residents scrabbled in the ruins for the dead and injured. In the countryside, wide fissures rent the fields, irrigation canals were broken, coal mines caved in.

It was still impossible to count all dead and injured this week. But as broken bodies were pried from the ruins and missing persons checked, the best figures set the toll at 50,000 dead, 60,000 injured, more than 700,000 homeless. It was the highest casualty list in any South American disaster.*

New President Pedro Aguirre, facing the first big job of his month-old Popular Front Government, took charge of the rescue work. Airplanes, many lent by U. S., French and German air lines, were used to ferry food and medical supplies. Two British cruisers, in Chilean waters for a friendship visit, began transporting medical supplies, evacuating refugees and injured. Greatest need was for medical supplies to prevent the spread of tetanus, typhoid, check gangrene. From their Canal Zone base, two U. S. Army bombers roared south loaded with serums. From Chile's neighbor, Argentina, started a fleet of rescue planes and trainloads of supplies.

Bodies were dug from the ruins, laid in piles for burial. But the broiling sun soon made the stench so unbearable that thousands of corpses had to be thrown into the quake fissures to get rid of them. Their water mains and pumping stations smashed, many parched survivors scooped their drinks from dirty ditches and contaminated wells. Puckish and unsated, the elements drove icy winds down from the Andes, and on the winds rode storm clouds which dropped on the shelterless, part-injured, part-naked, part-diseased population one of the most violent rainstorms Chile has ever had.

*The other great zone of quake frequency is known as the Mediterranean-Caucasian-Himalayan circle. Along this and the Pacific zone scientists estimate 91 out of 100 quakes occur.

*Bernardo O'Higgins, born 1780 was the natural son of a Chilean mother and an adventurous Irish father, Ambrosio O'Higgins. Born plain Ambrose O'Higgins in County Meath, Father Ambrosio went to South America to seek his fortune and was so successful that he became the Spanish-appointed Governor of Chile. Son Bernardo was educated in Spain and England, returned to work, later fight, for Chilean independence at the side of South America's famed liberator, Jose de San Martin. In 1817 Bernardo O'Higgins became benevolent dictator of Chile's first independent permanent government.

*The most destructive earthquake of modern times took 99,331 lives, injured 103,733 at Tokyo and Yokohama in 1923. The world's greatest quake was recorded in India in 1737, with the deaths estimated at 300,000. The U. S.'s famed San Francisco quake and fire in 1906 killed only 452.

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