Testimony of Brother Juvenal and Sister Iris Opazo, who are first-hand witnesses of the 8.8 Earthquake and Tsunami in Constitucion in 2010
– Interpreter Brother Steve Ramdeen –
This following written testimony was given separately before the video was taken:
It was February 27th, 2010 at 3 a.m. when that terrible earthquake struck. That day I was working night shift, while my wife was working in a hotel down town in Constitucion, only 2 blocks away from the River Maule. The owner of the hotel had left his three little children with her to babysit. She had begged me several times that day to come after work to stay in the hotel, which I normally wouldn’t do. But that night after work I felt to go, because I didn’t want to be at home alone. So I went to stay with my wife at the hotel. Everybody was sound asleep and all of a sudden I felt the place was moving. I usually sleep very deep and my wife has a very light sleep. But this particular night she slept so deep; she didn’t feel any shaking. It was shaking for three long minutes. Since the hotel was a strange place to me, I didn’t know where to find the keys to open the door or the car keys, because by the shaking the furniture had fallen. We heard the children screaming, the guests of the hotel panicked hollering “The ocean is coming, the ocean is coming” over and over again.
I finally managed to find the keys, get my wife and the children into the van and while trying to drive away, I saw that the hotel was already badly damaged. The streets were full of debris from destroyed homes, walls, trees, bodies. And it was hard to get through; everything was blocked. I just wanted to get to higher ground, and it was a battle against time.
20 minutes after the earthquake the first tsunami came, while I was with my family on the way to my mother-in-law, who is living on a hill in Constitucion, where the tsunami couldn’t reach. By God’s grace alone we made it just in time.
When the earthquake happened, the ocean sucked up all the water from the Maule River. The people who were living on the island Orrego, which is situated in the river, they were celebrating that night the end of summer; it was February 27th, 2010. Only on this island they celebrate this feast and lots of people are there for camping, lots of tourists, it’s a big celebration. When the water was sucked out of the river, people were trying to cross through the river bed, but it was so muddy and they were sinking; they hardly could move. A lot of the people went into the trees to hang on to the top, they survived.
Another witness reported that his most sad experience was, when he saw, that a young man took a baby crying for his parents up on his shoulders and climbed a tree. Then he saw the parents looking for the baby and he brought the baby down and went quickly up again. That very minute the tsunami swept the parents with the baby away.
The first day after this terrible disaster I had to work, and my work is close by the sea. That day I witnessed many dead bodies were swept to the shore there, thousands of dead fish were floating and the crows were just feeding on those carcasses. The whole place was smelling terrible. It is remarkable that these crows stayed for two years in that place.
One of the families, who we were friends with, they all died in the earthquake when their house collapsed on them and killed them all. Many of my friends and coworkers lost their houses, loved ones, everything. We didn’t have any electricity or water for three days, and bandits started to lute whatever they could get. Only three days after the quake the army reached there to help.
I had to work five days and nights in a row, couldn’t go home at all, and helped to distribute drinking water to the people. I was thinking it was the coming of the Lord, it was so terrible.
4 other towns along the ocean were completely destroyed, while other cities along the coast had also quite some damage. There was a lot of destruction in Chile from this earthquake, but not as massive as here in Constitucion.
Glory to God for His great faithfulness!