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November 2008                                                                                                   Volume 15 - Number 2

Domestic Disaster Update...

The Day the Ground Moved: A Personal Experience

By Joy Chia-I Lee

Due to the succession of volcanoes in the country and its geographic location on the Pacific Ocean in Central America, El Salvador was no stranger to tremors and earthquakes and other natural disasters. However, on Saturday January 13^th 2001, what would otherwise seem to be a quiet afternoon became one of the most traumatic days that I have experienced with natural disasters. This was the day when a 7.6 magnitude earthquake violently shook the grounds of El Salvador for approximately 40 seconds. The earthquake caused nationwide devastation, causing damage to buildings, destroying homes, and creating mudslides that buried and killed hundreds of people.

The day started like any other Saturday, my father was at a golf course, my mother and I were in the house, watching television. At approximately, 5:30pm, the ground began to shake. Since small tremors were not uncommonly felt in El Salvador, at first, my mom and I just shrugged it off as the “usual” tremor and continued our business. As the quake shook longer and harder, we realized that it was not the “usual” and we panicked and ran to the back yard. After the ground stopped shaking, we immediately proceeded to contact my dad. We were extremely worried about him because the golf course located around a lake in a dead volcano crater. The road to the golf course was an unpaved mountain path where rockslides along the sides were possible, especially in the case of an earthquake. Although initially we were not able to contact my dad as the communication system for local calls were down, we were able to contact my sister and my aunt in the U.S. to let them know that we were fine. Just a couple of hours later, we were finally able to contact my father, who had difficulty trying to come back into the city as boulders from the rockslides had blocked parts of the road. We were extremely glad and happy to know that our family and friends were safe and our house suffered little to no damage. Even power and the phone were restored within a couple of hours.

Unfortunately, the earthquake and its many strong aftershocks destroyed various part of the country. The most devastating scene was in Las Colinas, where a mudslide buried a newly built neighborhood. The government tried to act fast to the region, sending help and machinery to try to save people; however, rescuers were overwhelmed by the size of devastation, as hundreds of people were buried alive. The rest of the country was also suffering, as many people were left homeless, especially the poor, and there was lack of safe drinking water. The country, despite its past history with earthquakes, was criticized for not being prepared. Unfortunately I don’t remember much of the recovery process, but I do remember the amount of international rescuers that came in the country to assist with immediate recovery. Although this is not the only natural disaster I had been through, this was day that would forever inscribe a sense of alertness and panic whenever I feel the ground shake.