Tsunami warning came too late for Robinson Crusoe Island

Mar 1, 2010, 9:33 GMT

Santiago- Islanders in the Chilean archipelago of Juan Fernandez felt a slight tremor early Saturday, one just like any other of those they hardly take notice of, and they slept on.

Over the course of the morning, they saw on television the damage that the massive quake had caused in the city of Concepcion and elsewhere on the southern Chilean mainland.

And then officials started waiting for information about a possible tsunami, but it ever came. Instead, as they saw the sea starting to rise, they rushed to switch on the sirens - but it was too late for some.

The tsunami killed five people on the island, while 14 remained missing a day later, a toll that may have been avoided had the tsunami-detection and warning mechanisms been in order, some say.

Upon hearing the sirens, some of the 629 residents of the village of Juan Bautista on Robinson Crusoe Island ran to the hills with no time for salvage.

A wall of water - possibly nearly 5 metres high - ravaged everything in its way. Within a few minutes, the scene of the adventures of Scottish sailor Alexander Selkirk - marooned on the island from 1704 to 1708, and immortalized in Daniel Defoe's novel Robinson Crusoe - had been razed to the ground.

'Everything that had been along that three-kilometre stretch just disappeared,' said Fernando Avaria, the first pilot to fly over the area after the disaster.

The cemetery, the churches, sports facilities and the area's only school were reduced to planks of wood and broken glass. The buildings of the local authority simply disappeared.

'It was devastating, really out of a horror film,' said Margot Salas, a local who toured the area with Chilean state television cameras almost 24 hours after the disaster.

As the sea receded, Robinson Crusoe Island faced a new flood - one of despair. Mud covered everything within three kilometres of the coast.

Alberto Recabarren, 40, was first buried for two hours under the rubble of his own home, then was almost washed to sea as his house disappeared around him.

'At least three times I was dragged away by the waves, and I stayed alive by hanging on to some brambles, where they later found me,' he told the radio station Bio Bio.

Marine biologist Ismael Caceres, who was in the area with a work group from Chile's Catholic University, survived the disaster. But his fiancee did not.

'The wave took away my daughter-in-law,' said his father Fernando Caceres. 'This is an avoidable tragedy. The people of Cumberland Bay would have escaped with an early warning.'

Delays in the warning system, which left locals at Juan Fernandez archipelago with no chance to seek safety, led to controversy between the National Emergency Office of the Interior Ministry (ONEMI) and the Navy.

Neither wanted at first to take responsibility for the mistake.

'The first information we had was that there was no tsunami,' said ONEMI director Carmen Fernandez.

'When we asked about a variation in the height of the tide that was being locally reported from Juan Fernandez, we were told that it would not be more than 18 centimetres,' she said, adding: 'And in the end, we were talking metres.'

Defence Minister Francisco Vidal confirmed this version Sunday.

'We have to tell the truth, even if it hurts. Yesterday, a Navy division made a mistake. What was seen on the coast between the Sixth and the Ninth regions is a tsunami no matter where you go - here or on the moon,' Vidal said.

Officials at the US-based Pacific Tsunami Warning Center said the highest peak-to-trough measurement along the Chilean coast was about 4.68 metres, measured at Talcahuano. They did not have specific measurements for the Juan Fernandez archipelago.

The disaster left locals even more isolated than usual. The 670 kilometres that separate Robinson Crusoe from mainland Chile were magnified by the absence of air or sea transport.

Those who lost property in the tsunami were awaiting assistance from the Chilean central government, as they continued to look in awe at the mud all around them.