Day 18

We are back in Concepcion for a couple days.  I have been asked to give a report of what we've seen and learned in the Cauquenes area to the Executive Presbytery tomorrow.  We're at Pastor Pedro Contreras' house and are able to get online today.  I have no idea when we'll be able to connect again as we may be on the road.  It is possible that after the meeting we will be able to head back to Aysen.

The last couple days we visited small towns North of Cauquenes and then went to Constitucion.  Again, the small towns of mostly adobe construction were devastated.  In one town of 70 houses only 4 survived.  We then visited some houses out of town and were told that we were the first people to check on them.  This was 18 days after the earthquake.

The town of Constutucion (pop 55-60k) is in real bad shape.  The whole downtown area is like being in one of those WWII films of Europe.  The ones where everything is trashed and they just bulldoze a path through the rubble.  After the huge quake there was a huge tsunami.  They talk of hundreds dead in this town alone.

This is how many houses in the country ended up

We gave out what food we had

Entire streets in Constitucion were wiped out

This man (a Christian) opened his business in his destroyed home

There were some caskets in the street.  We don't know where they came from.

We saw large fishing boats 3 miles upriver.