Chile Earthquake Update: Six months later, life goes on…for some

Participants in Mercy Corps' Comfort for Kids program perform the "Cueca," Chile's national dance.

We've just passed the six-month anniversary of the 8.8 magnitude earthquake in Chile. As a program officer with Mercy Corps, I was asked to take a trip south to assess our work. Upon arrival in Santiago, newspaper headlines grabbed my attention: "Six months later, life goes on...as does the pain."

Mercy Corps developed this workbook to help children process their feelings about February's earthquake and tsunami in Chile. Photo: Sara Murray/Mercy Corps

Mercy Corps operates through a local partner organization, Educacion Popular en Salud (Popular Health Education, EPES for short), which is staffed by talented community organizers who are also doctors, professors, social workers and psychologists. The EPES team was quick to point out that the disaster brought Chile's socio-economic disparities to the surface.

As we've seen in countless other disasters, the poor are most likely to live in low-quality buildings that can't withstand shocks. And, as they lack the resources to rebuild, many recover from the trauma in tents, poorly equipped temporary shelters or by moving in with unaffected family members. While today — six months after the disaster — most of the rubble has been cleared away and a majority of Chileans have returned to their pre-quake routines, a less-visible minority has not been able to simply pick up the pieces and move on.

Mercy Corps and EPES are working with families in Penco, a port city battered by the earthquake and a resultant tsunami. As a result of the disaster, Penco currently suffers from a 30 percent unemployment rate and many families have been displaced to temporary camps. The displaced residents I met have been forced to accept a high level of uncertainty about their futures. Their livelihoods have been disrupted, government assistance has been slow and inadequate, and a return to normal seems very, very far away.

Our work in Penco, Chile supported children's emotional recovery from the earthquake. Photo: Sara Murray/Mercy Corps

Mercy Corps is reaching out to families in Penco with psychosocial programming and by helping camp residents weatherize their homes and organize to interact more efficiently with government service providers. It's important work that's helping reduce stress and fear, promote community organization, and maintain minimum living standards until more permanent solutions arrive.

Juan Corea Solar, president of the Camp, told me, “With these problems and difficulties, it is easy to become demoralized, but the support we receive from the outside helps us keep moving forward…we are grateful.”