Dirk Noppe, partner of ADAM Software, visited Chile one week after the devastating earthquake. What was planned as a holiday evolved from a one man action to the mobilisation of many resources in Chile and the rest of the world. Here's his story in his own words.

Download Dirk's story as a pdf

Holidays in Chile, one week after the earthquake.

Alicia, a very good friend of mine, bought herself a house in Chile about a year ago. She is Chilean of origin, but married a Belgian surgeon about 25 years ago, and has lived in Belgium since then. I’ve always wanted to visit south America, and this was the perfect opportunity. Plans were made to visit the south of Chile, the coast side, and do some hiking in the mountains.

We were booked to travel to Santiago on the 2nd of March, but disaster struck on February 27th... A severe earthquake hit the country and all flights were grounded. It was all over the news, and Alicia, worried about her family, struggled hard to get in touch with them. Only after a while, did she manage to get them on the phone: they were all OK, but the amount of damage had never been seen before. The city of Curicó was hit pretty badly and a lot of colonial houses did not survive the quake. Her sister Fabiola was in Llico at the coast occupying her weekend-house when it all happened but survived without injuries. Her house was completely destroyed however.

In spite of this information, we persisted in going. It would probably not become the holiday we had in mind: travelling would be difficult, if not impossible, but we knew that Alicia’s house was still intact, so we had a place to stay. We would just take it from there and see what could be done. We discussed with the airline company the alternatives: leaving with the first available flight was not an option: all hotel rooms in Madrid were occupied by stranded travellers, and they got priority together with aid and support people. In the end we managed to re-book our tickets to leave on March 10th with a return date of March 28th. On Wednesday 10th, the four of us went to the airport, and got on the plane to Madrid. Once in Madrid we were sure we would leave for Santiago.

Arriving at Santiago, the captain informed us of a new earthquake, 7.1 on the Richter scale. He did not get permission to land the plane but had to circle for half an hour. If it turned out that the runway was damaged, we would have to re-direct to Mendoza in Argentina. Lucky for us, the runway was okay and we got permission to land. Coming off the plane gave us our first encounter with destruction: the airport building was closed, the glass roof had collapsed and the terminal was now hosted in a couple of big white tents. There was no lack of organisation, however: everything went smoothly until we were out and went to search for our rental car. We managed to find some rental companies, but not the one that we had booked with, and nobody could tell us where to find them. Only after about an hour or so, by sheer luck, we found them on a parking lot. We got lucky and appreciated it: we we given a very nice 4x4 Nissan Xtrail and we’re ready to head south to Curicó !

Finally, about 6 hours later than planned, we arrived at Alicia’s house...

I guess there is no need to say that this house is probably the most beautiful one in the area.
On top of that, Alicia’s family welcomed us with a more than nice barbecue, plenty of food & drinks and music & dance!

It seemed that this holiday was going to be one of the finest I had ever had. People were having fun and the effect of the earthquake was absolutely nowhere to be seen.
This changed quite quickly when we went on the road to the city centre of Curicó...

This was not a pretty sight: I estimate that about 15% of the houses had collapsed completely. Another 35% have been marked with a big yellow “X” on the walls and doors, meaning they are structurally damaged beyond repairs and needed to be brought down... I was speechless.

After paying a visit to Maria, Alicia’s oldest sister, we started hearing their stories about what had happened. The earthquake lasted for more than two minutes, during which it was impossible to stand on your feet ! Some people did not manage to get out of the house in time and got trapped... It must have been one of the most frightening moments of their lives.

Then we get to hear the story of Alicia’s younger sister, Fabiola. She and her family were at their weekend house in Llico at the coast during the event. She was woken up by the quake and tried to get out of the house, when she realised she didn’t hear the sound of the sea anymore. She knew something really bad was coming to them and tried to warn as many people as possible to flee to the mountains. They ran as fast as they could, leaving everything behind, wearing only the clothes they went to bed with. Seconds later they witnessed a first tsunami wave covering the whole coast side, followed by a 2nd and a 3rd one that wiped out everything...

The pictures above were taken about 2 weeks after our first visit to the coast side of Iloca and Llico. I simply was not able to make pictures at that time, it felt so wrong...

It is extremely sad to hear that some people like Fabiola have lost their property, but it is even worse when you hear that many of these houses were occupied by local people, fishermen, who were already pretty poor, and they have lost everything they had. Their boats and fishing equipment were lost as well, so there is no way for them to have any means of income...

At this moment I realized I couldn’t just be on holiday anymore. I did not want to watch a country in such pain, nor did I want to be a disaster tourist. It even  felt emotionally wrong staying in a luxury house, knowing that many others are struggling to survive. Yes, the government was trying to help them by providing temporary shelter, but even that is minimal.

I decided I wanted to help, one way or another. Easier said than done actually. I’m a foreigner in a foreign country, and I do not speak Spanish very well... So you start thinking about what you can do. I asked Alicia to get me in touch with people who would know, but even that was not a simple task and took time.

As it happens, Alicia’s nephew, Gonzalo got involved as well. He and his girlfriend Carolina had travelled to the coast on the 28th, one day after the disaster. They helped cleaning up and distributing food and clothes. He was the one who came up with the idea of installing electricity in the wooden sheds. The winter was approaching fast and these sheds offer no comfort at all. A minimum electricity installation with two lights and a couple of sockets would be more than welcome.

They started by verifying the necessary components and their prices: ground pins, differential switches, main switches, light fittings, lamps, sockets and cabling. It all summed up to approximately 80 Euro per house. Alicia and I decided we wanted to provide money for about 20 houses, and educate Gonzalo and Carolina on  how to install it all. I wanted to spent the rest of my holidays helping them to install as well.

As it happens, I was text messaging a friend of mine in Belgium about a totally different topic, and I asked him if he wanted to sponsor one or more houses as well. He immediately agreed and we had extra money at hand. This made me send out 30 or so more messages to relatives and friends in Belgium, and within a day we collected approximately 10,000 Euro! Enough for over 100 houses!

Next thing to do was to get it all organized: buy the material, rent a pick-up to transport etc. We had to visit a number of stores in order to get material for about 35 houses, and Gonzalo spent a whole Sunday trying to find a car. By Sunday evening we were all set, and I started to teach them how to connect the differential switches to the mains etc. We then loaded the truck and left on Monday early in the morning, heading for Iloca.

Arriving at Iloca, we stopped at the first wooden houses we came across and started explaining to the people what we had in mind. They were so surprised and happy that everyone just let us in to do what we wanted to do.

I have never ever seen and experienced so much gratitude and warmth from people. They insisted we had lunch with them, even when we said we brought our own food and that we wanted to use our time to install as many as possible houses... I guess I have experienced the most enjoyable lunches I will ever have in my life… simple but extremely tasty food.

We managed to do about 10 houses during our stay, and have material at hand for another 25 houses. The money that is left, will allow us to do another 70 houses, bringing the total over 100 houses. Gonzalo and Carolina are continuing the work in the coming weeks and months. They will spent weekends of three to four days at the coast every week from now until the money is used.
We also saw that these houses are not wind-tight, nor is the roof fixed the way it should be. We decided to buy extra nails to fix the roofs better, buy plastic to wrap the houses to make them wind-tight and some foam-spray to fill the gaps between the walls and the roof.

I’m pleased to know that with the help of Gonzalo and Carolina, I was able to start something, that will continue even when I’m not there. Gonzalo is going to involve his friends and relatives as well in the effort. 100 houses is a nice achievement, but just in the town of Iloca, there are 150 of these houses. All over the coast line, there are many thousands...

If you read this story and decide you want to participate, you can.
Get in touch with me by e-mail or cell phone, and I’ll make sure every penny of your donation will go to help these people.

I will get regular (probably weekly) updates of the work with pictures and names of people that have received help. All of you who sponsor and have an e-mail address, will be updated also.

Dirk Noppe
dirk@adamsoftware.net
Cell phone: +32 496 26 82 00

Download Dirk's story as a pdf

Carolina Isabel Flores San Martin  -  Gonzalo Alonso Duarte Cepeda  -  Dirk Noppe