Friday

Today we went around visiting more churches and families.  We found one home where over 40 people were living.  We went to Talcahuano to see if and when containers of help might be able to arrive.
While we were out it was obvious that life was totally changed for most people here.  Driving was chaotic with people walking, on bikes, driving, army, police, fire trucks and ambulances all sharing very rough roads with very few traffic lights working.  We also saw lines.  Lines everywhere, lines for water, for food, and like the one below for gas.  This line stretched for close to a mile.  People are spending their day in a line to get something they need.

Not all houses and buildings are damaged but many are to one degree or another.  Some look fine from the outside and are torn up inside.  Some have cosmetic damage and others have to be abandoned at once.  The church we visited in Talcahuano has cracks and one wall leaning.  We will have to get an engineer to tell us if it can be saved or not.  The photo below is of a street we walked down to get to city hall.  City hall in Talcahuano had to be abandoned at once.

We won't know when we can get a container in for a couple days.  There are 2 ports here, one is shut down for a long time and they are checking the other.  We will try to get supplies from the US to this port as soon as it looks like the port will be usable.  The photo below is of the bay and you can see the tsunami damage, boats on dry land, containers in the water, one fishing boat sunk.  We saw a quite a number of boats and large ships on dry land and capsized in the water.

It does look like we will need to raise some money to continue helping out here.  The need is great and help is urgently needed now and will be needed for some time to come.  If you'd like to help please contact me or use the 'donation' link on the right of the page.

Steve