Anxieties rise as surge of tremors makes Navidad the shakiest town in Chile

December 13, 2012 – NAVIDAD, Chile — One jolt hit in the middle of the night. Another caught fishermen at a nearby beach. Then the ground shook at supper. And then again, and again: More than 170 tremors were felt in Navidad in just five weeks. The strongest struck during a funeral, and sent panicked mourners fleeing into the street. Navidad, a coastal farming town of 5,500 people, has become one of the shakiest spots in one of the world’s shakiest countries. And seismologists can’t say whether these were aftershocks from Chile’s devastating quake two years ago, or warnings of another huge disaster to come. Navidenos, though, have learned to take quakes in stride. In this town whose name means Christmas, some decorate Christmas trees with quakes in mind, wiring ornaments to the branches or taking extra efforts to secure the base. Restaurant owners nail wood railings panels to their shelves to keep glasses and liquor from crashing down. Some now use canned beer, shunning bottles as too risky. Children at public schools practice drills every day and everyone seems to have a quake bag with flashlights and food ready.  “We were born, grew up and were raised with earthquakes,” acting Mayor Rodrigo Soto said. “It seems like the world for the first time has discovered Navidad. Everyone asks us if we’re scared and all we can say is that we need to be prepared.” Still, no amount of preparation can avoid that panicky feeling when the ground really rumbles. There’s no way to know at that moment whether the shaking will pass quickly, or become frighteningly worse. While the ground shook under the pews at the funeral, the faces of the mourners turned pale like the dead. Despite appeals for calm, the church swayed so much that people panicked and ran outside. “People were terrorized,” Carolina Jeria, recalling that 5.9-magnitude quake on Nov. 21. “In a moment like that, you lose control. We’re very worried about the quakes because the big one in 2010 caught us unprepared.” Soto says the town still has an inadequate tsunami alert system — a siren that sounds like a car alarm and lacks the volume needed to reach all the townspeople. But after so many tremors, he says Navidenos know in their bones when to run. They know they’ll barely feel a magnitude-2, but a magnitude-7 will knock them off their feet and that’s a sign to scramble for high ground in case there’s a tsunami. Aside from the quakes, life is slow in Navidad. Many farmers still use oxen to plow their land, while others cater to tourists who come for the Pacific beaches from Chile’s capital of Santiago, 170 kilometers (100 miles) northeast of town. Yet people are often on edge. –AP/WP