Terremoto

The locals only call them earthquakes (terremotos) when they get over about 7.5 on the rictar scale; anything less than that is a mere temblor. If they happened in Australia, we'd be freaking out a long time before that [here I am put in mind of the photo below]. Whatever you call them, I've experienced three since arriving. The first two were 5 point something I think. I slept through number one, which happened in the middle of the night a couple of weeks after I'd arrived. I think that I may have been too exhausted to notice or perhaps my subconscious didn't yet have a category for this phenomena.

The second was towards the end of Samy and Pedro's birthday fiesta. I was in the kitchen with a bunch of people and once again completely oblivious until Felipe called us all outside. It ended before I fully comprehended what it was. It was such a foreign experience - the world rumbling and shifting around me - that I only half took it in.

The third tremor was quite different. It ended up being rated a 'moderately strong' 6.7. Fortunately these days buildings in Chile are designed to withstand earthquakes (they have chains running through them and I'm sure other things), so the worst thing that's likely to happen is you'll be injured by something falling on your head. Anyway, I'd gone to bed early and was in the middle of a dream when it started. The earthquake morphed into something unpleasant in my dream, so I woke unnerved and befuddled to find the house shaking around me, to the sound of a rhythmical banging going on and on. It was a pretty scary experience and I had a bit of trouble getting to sleep afterwards, but I asked God to calm my fear and he must've done it.


Here's a short clip of what the tremor was like.

And here's a photo of the horrifying earthquake experienced in Canberra only the other day (H/T Simon):