There were not extremely large numbers of victims, for such an earthquake, because the population was alerted on that something was going to happen by previous shakes and underground noise. However, 2300 people lost its life in the quake and in the tsunami that followed it. 80 feet high waves devastated the Chilean and Peruvian coasts and they propagated at more than 200 miles an hour to the coasts of Hawaii, Philippines, and Japan, destroying everything on its way and killing many
people.
In Valdivia, the stories of the earthquake are alive in people's minds. Immediately after the quake and knowing what will came next, the people of the lowlands run to the hills for protection. But not all of them follow those security measures. Meanwhile the tide started to retreat into the ccean, leaving the rivers dry.
Afterwards the inevitable arrived, a huge 80 feet tidal wave devastated everything on its way, taking with it fishing boats and sinking large ships. The wave followed the river course and damaged the city's industrial zone leaving ruins that are visible even today. Then the wave returned to the sea carrying back small boats with fishermen and whole houses with people alive asking for help while in their fatal travel to the ocean. They were not to be seen again. The landslides blocked the rivers and they threaten to produce a major flood, which could have erased Valdivia from the map. Hardworking and sacrifice stop it from happening, sparing the city of a worst disaster.
Valdivia lost much with the earthquake, however the city was rebuilt and it is now one of the most beautiful of Chile. The ruins of industrial installations and sunken ships are the only testimony of such a tragic
day.
The Serpents of the Sea and the Land
Time Magazine, July 4th, 1960:
Disaster would not leave Chile alone. Attempting to placate the gods they held responsible for the continuing quakes in southern Chile, Mapuche Indians beat a six-year old boy to death with sticks, tore out his heart and offered it to the sea. When police arrested two of the Indians, they explained: "We were asking for calm in the sea and on the earth."
Chile it is seismic country and it has always been since remote times, as the Mapuche legends tell us. They say that Chilean southern islands were created in the violent battle between the evil sea serpent Cai-Cai Vilu and the benign land serpent Treng-Treng Vilu, the last one a friendly protector of the Mapuche people. Cai-Cai, allied with the Pillanes - the volcanoes which in Mapuche myths are the sorcerers - , planned to flood the earth. They started producing earthquakes and rising the sea level. While the water rised, the people that fell on it got converted into the first whales and dolphins that came to be. Finally Cai-Cai and Treng-Treng engaged in battle and fragmented the Chilean territory south of Chiloe and created the lakes and lagoons of the south. Since then the natives were used to sacrifice animals - and only sporadically humans - to placate Cai-Cai anger.
In 1960 the myth was transformed in a tangible reality. Affected by the biggest earthquake in world's history and by the tsunami that followed, the geology of Valdivia changed forever. Large portions of land were flooded, changing the topography of the area. It was just a new episode more in the eternal fight between the Serpents of the Sea and of the Land.
Valdivia
| Valdivia Forts | The
Catastrophe | Spanish
Colonial Tech
Text: Omar Vega
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