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Wednesday, March 03, 2010

Michigan Tech faculty members, family and student survive earthquake in Chile

HOUGHTON -- Over a fuzzy phone connection to Santiago, with slight delays, Michigan Tech's Chuck Wallace, a visiting Fulbright Scholar at the Universidad de Católica, relays how scared -- and lucky -- his family was during the Chilean earthquake.

"It was 3 in the morning," he says, "and we were in bed on the fifteenth floor, would you believe? It was shaking like something I’ve never felt before, and I was raised in California."

Wallace, his wife, Susanna Peters (also a Michigan Tech faculty member) and their two children, Sam and Cecilia, were "thrown from wall to wall"; and they braced themselves at those walls during a seemingly endless one and one-half minutes of shaking ...*

Sam Wallace, age 10, writes his first reactions to the earthquake

Sam Wallace, a fifth grader at Houghton Elementary, writes the following in a letter to his class:
"Around 3:30 in the morning there was a HUGE earthquake. It was SO scary even though I didn't even get the least of it. We are on the fifteenth floor in an apartment house, but the building was super sturdy, so after the tremendous shaking which was so huge I'll never go on a fair ride again . . . most of the family is up and my mother is yelling 'WAKE UP CECI IT'S AN EARTHQUAKE!!!' . . . And by the way I have to tell you that this earthquake was going on for about 2 minutes, only getting worse, and 2 minutes is huge for an earthquake. Complete with sound effects of a bunch of breaking glass (which turned out to be most of our plates and cups) ...

And from Cecilia, age 13, after she wakes up:

"CECI WAKE UP… IT'S AN EARTHQUAKE!" I was up in a second. Hmm… this explains the turbulent boat drem. . . No one was really dressed and we were all hanging on to the doorframes just to stay up. I was convinced that our floor was no longer in line with the rest of the building and was just about to fall off the top and we were all going to die. That's a really different feeling than I have ever had before. . . Then I tried to hug Mom because I figured that if I was going to die I was going to do it with someone. Except that she was looking around for -- of all things -- jackets! While we were all about to die. Maybe her last wish was to die with thermal clothing clutched in her hands??? Then we held on for life and then it stopped and we could move again ...**

* Read the rest of Dennis Walikainen's March 1 article about the Wallace family on the Michigan Tech News.

** Read more from Sam and Cecilia Wallace on Tech Today.

Also in Chile on a study-abroad program, Evan Johnson, a Michigan Tech student based in Santiago, was safely on a field trip in the far south of the country. He is studying through the Universidad Andrés Bello in Santiago. He has assured Tech's International Programs and Services office that he is OK.

How you can help

If you would like to contribute to earthquake relief in Chile, click here for the Huffington Post's list of aid agencies.

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