Chile through the Eyes of Soledad O’Brien

On Saturday, February 27, Chile was hit with one of the strongest earthquakes affecting over two million people, the 8.8 quake left massive damage destroying buildings, tearing bridges apart and leaving many without electricity, water and phone lines. Today, anchor and special correspondent for CNN/U.S., Soledad O’ Brien tells LATINA Style her story while in Chile.

I found the aftershocks terrifying. For people who have survived a massive quake I can’t even imagine what it is like since they’re reliving it over and over again. It was scary to me the first time around even though I was out in the middle of the street and it was fairly safe, so psychologically is probably where the biggest need is. People need to feel their world is coming back to them and that is really hard. I got to a point where I was always looking up thinking something was going to fall on me.

On Saturday, February 27, Chile was hit with one of the strongest earthquakes affecting over two million people, the 8.8 quake left massive damage destroying buildings, tearing bridges apart and leaving many without electricity, water and phone lines. Today, anchor and special correspondent for CNN/U.S., Soledad O’ Brien tells LATINA Style her story while in Chile.

I found the aftershocks terrifying. For people who have survived a massive quake I can’t even imagine what it is like since they’re reliving it over and over again. It was scary to me the first time around even though I was out in the middle of the street and it was fairly safe, so psychologically is probably where the biggest need is. People need to feel their world is coming back to them and that is really hard. I got to a point where I was always looking up thinking something was going to fall on me.

Overall, the Chileans were so far ahead of the game after a massive earthquake.

It was interesting to see how much more together the government was in Chile even though there where issues in terms of how fast help was getting to the people. People were complaining about not having great access to food and water, and the stores were not open as fast as they wanted them. But certainly when you compare it to Haiti the government was much more together. Also the quality of the construction was so much better and that made a big difference in Chile. The government was constantly making announcements, getting out the news, something we didn’t see in Haiti. The government was saying ‘we do not like this, we do not accept this, this is not going to happen, (the looting) and we are going to do this and that,’ and that helped reinforce the psychology of moving forward and the idea of ‘it’s going to be ok’ as opposed to a vacuum of leadership.