A woman caught up in the chaos of last week’s earthquake in Chile has told The Hackney Post of her experience.
When the earthquake struck, Fiona Scott, 23, of Enfield Road in De Beauvoir, was staying at her sister Heather’s apartment in the Chilean capital Santiago.
“I woke up in the middle of the night being chucked all over the bed,” said Scott. “My sister was holding on to me and screaming. It stopped shaking after about two minutes, but it felt like forever.
“It’s the noise that’s most terrifying,” continued the student of international journalism at City University London.
“It was probably worse than the earthquake itself. It sounded like the earth was going to swallow me up. You hear a rumble, a growl and a range of other noises like glass shattering, and the woman in the next-door flat was screaming and car alarms went off.”
“When it stopped, we grabbed Heather’s cat, a pair of shoes and the mobile phones and legged it out of there. The cat’s 20 years old, blind and deaf, so he probably had no idea what the hell was going on. That’s probably a good thing.”
Having survived her ordeal Scott’s thoughts turned immediately to her parents, who were also in Santiago and staying at the top of the Marriott Hotel – one of the city’s tallest buildings.
“The phones were down for 45 minutes and I hadn’t heard anything from my parents, I was really scared. I knew they were at the top of this really tall, skinny building. I was just shaking and trying to call and call.” She eventually received a text message from them saying they were safe and the family were reunited a few hours later.
Scott later spoke to some friends who were near the epicentre of the quake – which measured 8.8 on the Richter scale – in Concepción.
“A friend of mine described having to sit guarding his house with a gun, but it was not like that in Santiago.”
She said that charities, schools and universities were open and helping people almost instantly.
“Everyone felt like the country broke down for a second and then really came together. Whether you have an earthquake in Hackney or whether you have an earthquake in Santiago, I think you have some people who react badly and some people who pull together.”
Although Scott said she was relieved to be back home, she also spared a thought for those left behind.
“The issue is not us. It is interesting, but it’s not remarkable in the grand scheme of what’s going on out there. I feel incredibly lucky and it could have been a lot worse. They are still getting aftershocks.”
What a brave girl. Sounds like a nasty experience, glad she's safe