Earthquake in Chile 4

Friday March 5th

We haven’t had much time recently to put an update on the blog as we’ve been busy and out of town. On Friday morning, we went to the Red Cross in Valdivia to see if there was anything we could do to help out. They said that they would call if they needed us. Well, they called that evening, and needed our help loading a transport truck with supplies to take out to a village that had not received any outside help yet, and had apparently been hit with a tsunami minutes after the earthquake. At 9pm we arrived at the Red Cross, and with all their volunteers, we all starting packing boxes out to the truck. There were about 400 prepared boxes to hand out to families and a number of extra boxes with miscellaneous goods, blankets, clothes, diapers, etc. By the time we were finished, the truck was full. Then the president of the Red Cross asked us to come the next morning with them to Lebú, and help out in whatever way possible. We already had some dog and cat food donations and some vaccines and dewormer that we decided to bring to administer if needed. Our intention was to help out where we could, but also to assess the community situation for impending problems in the area of veterinary public health. We had no idea what to expect.

At about 11pm or so, a professor from the university showed up with a dog food donation, and after we were finished packing the truck, he took us to the veterinary hospital to equip us with some essentials for the trip in case of emergency. We arrived home at about 1am, threw together our personal gear, packed our veterinary boxes with whatever we could find, and tried to sleep a bit before the alarm went off at 3:30am. I'll write Saturday's story tomorrow....

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Earthquake in Chile 3

Finally the army made it to Concepcion where it sounds like they are starting to restore some sense of order- at least with respect to the looting and violence. There is an 18 hour curfew now. The entire place is a mess, but they are finally bringing some essentials such as water, food, blankets etc into the city. They are moving more buses around the country, but only during the day. Gas is making it slowly into Valdivia but we haven´t been able to fill up yet. Still there is no organized effort to get volunteers into affected areas- it is still too early, but we are waiting to hear if and when they will need us. With regard to helping animals, we haven´t heard much; again it is still too early. There are still aftershocks in the 4´s and 5´s that rock the houses and apartments. Yesterday we learned that officials had made a mistake in the reporting of tsunami warnings- there actually was a high probability that the Chilean coast would be hit and in fact was hit in multiple places, but the Chilean president indicated that because the earthquake had hit on land, there was no risk. Pretty big error! Despite her announcement, we know that people around here still have their bags packed- just in case, and that water did recede on the beach near us, and that the town across the bay from us was evacuated. I guess people knew better after living their entire lives in such a seismically active area. Some things here in Valdivia are returning to normal, although everything still feels surreal, and there is a strange sense of reluctance to get back to work when there is such a disaster going on around us.

Earthquake in Chile 2

Today we went to town to get food and gasoline to make sure we were well stocked...just in case. The line ups in the grocery stores were UNBELIEVABLE!!!! We probably waited over an hour to check out. It seemed that there was plenty in the stores despite the rumours that we are running out of food. There were some shelves empty, but still, plenty for everyone. However, gas is another issue. We couldn´t find any. The gas stations are open, but are only selling diesel now. Today they sent the first two buses from Valdivia to Santiago to see how long it will take to get there. Apparently from Chillan to Santiago, it takes as much as 15 hours, where normally it takes about 5 hours comfortably. I think the worst of it all is the reports coming in about the looting. It is happening everywhere. A friend phoned us this morning to tell us that people were looting the supermarket in Valdivia. It was also on the news about people looting in Concepcion...I guess it´s all over the place. The price of bread has already doubled in Valdivia, and we heard it was at least twice that in Concepcion. Here are a couple of pics from the grocery store today:

Earthquake in Chile

People have been asking us to update them on how we all are here in Chile, and what really happened. First of all, we are all ok! It has been quite an experience, and we are realizing just how lucky we were, especially when we see the destruction that has occurred in some of the other places just north of us and realize that there are so many people still suffering.

We had visitors staying in the house with us who were in Valdivia for a wedding on Saturday of some mutual friends. Friday night, we all went to bed early- it had been a long week. At 3:30 in the morning or so, everything just started shaking like crazy. We jumped out of bed and huddled under the doorway in our bedroom, but then it got more intense, and we thought we should probably make a run for it, and get out of the house. It was hard to get down the stairs with everything moving so much, but we made it, and with our two visitors, we all crammed into the doorway of the front door, so that if anything happened we could either go in or out- whatever seemed safer. It seemed to last forever, but eventually it did stop, and everything was just dead silence. People started coming out of their houses and into the streets. There was no electricity, and no phones, so we had no idea where the epicentre was. There were more aftershocks, so we just stayed close together outside, waiting to see what would happen. Lots of people started leaving in their cars and on foot- presumably in case there was a tsunami as we are only a few blocks from the beach, and in 1960, the worst earthquake ever recorded, was right here in Valdivia, and people are pretty freaked out about earthquakes and tsunami´s.

Anyway, eventually those people who decided to stay, started heading back into their houses, but we were pretty soon back in the doorway when the house started rocking again- not as forcefully as the first one, but enough to make us bolt for protection. The rest of the night was mostly lying awake, feeling the aftershocks, listening to the dogs howling, and ready to bolt if needed. Eventually we all fell into a fitful sleep. In the morning we started trying to make contact with family and friends in other parts of Chile, and bits and pieces of what had happened started filtering through. There were lots of rumours about evacuation, tsunami´s, more earthquakes and so on, but eventually the electricity came back on, and the real horror of what had happened the night before started coming through on the internet. There were no radio stations, and the phone networks were swamped, so communications were intermittent. However, we did manage to get the word out to family, that we were fine, as well as find out that all our family in Chile were also fine- although suffering a ton of damage to their homes, and the cities they live in.

The strange thing was that we were all supposed to go to a wedding that very day! It was walking distance from where we lived, but it seemed such a strange thing to do after the night we had all had, and when we knew so many were suffering. We phoned to find out if it was still on, and they were going to go ahead because most of their friends and family had already arrived from far away, and would not be able to come back in a week or so if they rescheduled. So we went. As I said, it was pretty strange. But it turned out to be about the best thing that any of us could have done. There is really nothing any of us can do to help right now. The highways are blocked, and people in need are completely cut off from the rest of the world. So we decided to celebrate their wedding, and that´s what we did. There were a lot of tears and laughter, moments of happiness, and intense sadness. It was good to be surrounded by friends, and not to be in the house, just waiting for the next aftershock. The wedding was beautiful, and it was a surreal night of bonding.

Now we are all sort of waiting. Last night there were a bunch of aftershocks again, and after one bigger one, the town siren went off at about 1:30am. Shortly after, a truck pulled up in front of our house, and everybody jumped out yelling “Get up, get up!!!” People were running out to see what was going on, and neighbours were bolting into the street with their little children wrapped in blankets. They kept saying we had to get out, into the hills and that a tsunami was coming. Finally a neighbour came out, after having contacted an official in town, saying that it was a fire, and there was no tsunami. Everyone was to go back home. Needless to say, I´m sure most people are not getting much rest around here.

Most of the infrastructure throughout Chile is down, there are warnings and recommendations to suspend all unnecessary travel, the airports closed, all buses going north and south are cancelled, Concepcion is still completely cut off, and towns are starting to ration food as the highways are still not safe, and so food is not being delivered anywhere. People are stockpiling food, water and other resources, gas is rationed to $5.000 pesos ($10.00 Cdn) for each customer, only a few bank machines are working and we just heard that the grocery stores are pretty much cleaned out. Details...we are so lucky to be alive and well and have suffered nothing compared to those in Concepcion, Talca, Santiago, Viña del Mar and surrounding areas. We are trying to find out if there is an organized volunteer movement so that we can go to areas where we are needed, and try help out. We will keep you posted though on whether we go or not, and what happens around here. Right now all we can do is wait. Thanks to so many of you for checking on us.

This is our friends office down the road from ours:


This crack runs way down the sidewalk, and right through the middle of this planter.



This is the costanera in Valdivia that collapsed.

Working in Chaihuin

With Christmas and New Year festivities something of the past, we finally got things organized and headed out in the field to start our first disease sampling project. So here’s the story, with a bunch of pictures- I owe you guys a good posting!

Last Saturday night, we headed out on the ferry to Corral across the mouth of a huge river to the other side, where there is a small town with an old fort where they used to protect the access to Valdivia from invading Spaniards.

From there, we drove about 45 minutes inland on a really rough gravel road to a smaller town called Chaihuin, and camped at the edge of a huge Nature Reserve.

The next morning we started work- going from house to house in 2 teams of 4 people each. There were students from the University here in Valdivia, from the University of Minnesota, and from Santiago. Everyone was studying something a bit different, but we all worked together to make good use of each dog or cat we handled.

We asked people about their type of animal husbandry, perceptions about animals in general, and then did a physical exam on each dog, and took blood from all owned dogs and cats we could get our hands on.

The point of this first step is to try to understand why people here do the things they do...and what if anything might change their behaviours toward their dogs. For example, most people don´t believe that dogs feel pain, so when their dogs are too old to work, or if they do something that they don´t like, they “get rid” of them.... They also kill all the female puppies as a form of population control. So- lots to do, but having said that, it comes down more to an animal welfare issue than an overpopulation issue, because out of the 70 dogs that we sampled, there were only 3 females!

The second day we wanted to get to Cadillal Alto which is a small community up the river from Chaihuin, to see if there was a difference between what we saw and learned in Chaihuin and the outlying areas which have fewer people, much less money, and more dogs. It was quite the adventure- accessible only by boat, we packed our kits and newly purchased supplies (thanks to Prevost Veterinary Clinic donations!!!) into the boat and headed off among a buzz of millions of enormous black and orange flies! But what a spectacular view!

We spent all day walking from one house to the other in the blinding heat. The people were so nice, pretty poor compared to what we’re used to in Canada- but really friendly and accommodating.

There is no access there to vets or doctors for the local people...nothing. Anyway, we found the dogs extremely skinny, worked really hard with their owners and only fed every few days (wheat skins and milk whey)...so needless to say these dogs have a huge impact on wildlife in the area because they have to hunt to feed themselves. These dogs were semi-wild; it was a huge adventure trying to restrain dogs long enough to take a sample, and there were a few rodeos- but generally we got the short end of the stick with the dogs high-tailing it off into the horizon and us stunned and covered in dirt, sweat, and assorted canine body fluids…

Some of them were really gentle and sweet though….

From the blood taken from all these dogs, we will be looking at the prevalence of distemper and parvovirus to see what the disease risk is for some of the native fauna such as the fox, otter and wild cats. So our next step is education. We will be heading out again in March to start an education campaign based on what we learned this time around, and we will also be vaccinating if the disease test results prove that it is indeed a risk there. Education is really the key though, and we will be working with teachers to implement something into the school system.

Anyway, that´s it in a nutshell. We had a great time. Guillermo got an enormous cat bite on his finger, we got stuck once and ripped off the front bumper, but despite that, we headed home exhausted but happy.

Good News!

Christmas is on its way, and we had some Christmas cheer yesterday...one of our proposals was successful and we received funds to carry out a sterilization program in one of the towns nearby! Obviously, with the global economic crisis, non-profit organizations have been hit pretty hard as funding agencies have been unable to fund at their normal level...so, for us this is REALLY great news.
Summer is around the corner here, and hot weather is upon us. With it comes dogs in heat and packs of males fighting and barking all night long. Another thing is the increase in skin problems as fleas, ticks and mange flourish in this weather. Poor dogs spend most of their time scratching themselves raw! The other thing that changes with the season is tourism- loads and loads of cars full of people coming to the beach towns. I have definitely seen more dead animals on the highway and more abandoned animals in town these last few weeks....
Our race sure has an impact! That's why we'll be spending a lot of our time and energy on supporting the implementation of education programs to teach people about how to properly care for their pets.
Once Christmas and New Year is behind us, we'll begin our planning for early 2010. We'll let you know when we'll be starting projects, and will post lots of pics for you!
Elena