'I don't know how we're going to live'

Mar 2, 2010, 11:41 GMT

Dichato, Chile - The coastal village of Dichato in southern Chile is desolate and destroyed.

It's almost as if the world has been turned upside down here: There are houses piled up on cars, boats in the woods and a large portion of the shore disappeared into the sea after five consecutive, giant waves lashed the village on Saturday following the 8.8- magnitude that rocked Chile.

On Monday, aid was starting to arrive in what used to be a bucolic place that lived off fishing and tourism.

'We are going to have to occupy the houses on the hills, those that belong to holidaymakers,' housewife Beatriz Vergara told the German Press Agency dpa, in tears.

'I don't know how we're going to live,' said Vergara, standing before the rubble of what used to be her home.

The powerful waves did not displace Vergara's house, unlike other homes in Dichato that were almost lifted and moved from the lots on which they once stood.

'That house there, the purple one, used to be under the huge cypress tree that is over there,' Vergara said, pointing to a place one kilometre away.

The churning Pacific Ocean brought pandemonium to this little fishermen's cove. There are no paths left, no power or water. Fishing nets cover the rooftops, and there are bathrooms that have been snatched from houses and set down elsewhere, like toys, with bathtubs propped up precariously on rooftops.

'I don't want to go and see my house,' said fisherman Jose Daniel, who was roaming amid the rubble.

Like hundreds of other locals, Daniel returned to the shore from the hills where he sought refuge, going through tons of rubble for the bodies of his missing neighbours. He was also trying to find food for his children - no one knows how to feed them now.

'The boss sent us this for some reason,' he said, referring to God.

Vergara also believes in the wrath of God. Two pews left like an inverted cross at an Adventist church appear to confirm her fears.

Amid the destruction, there are fears of violence. Young men were seen inspecting the rubble with their guns drawn. 'Criminals came over to plunder from other villages,' one neighbour said. But he soon fell into a solemn silence, looking blankly at the three kilometres of land that the sea devastated.

The fire department has tried to find its equipment in the rubble. Its headquarters were ravaged and volunteers try and support the walls with plastic containers and pieces of wood.

'We have to start recovering the bodies,' Carolina Gutierrez, assistant to the fire department captain, told dpa.

Families continued to look for some of their members on Monday. 'Here comes my niece!' Vergara exclaimed, as she rushed to hug the newcomer.

Next to an old lady who sobbed inconsolably, Omar Cuevas, a construction worker, complained that the people of Dichato have gone three days without aid. 'They say the president (Michelle Bachelet) came over in a helicopter, but I did not see her,' he said.

The fear of what nature will bring next is rife. 'I close my eyes and I imagine the waves. I remember the sound, that very strong sound that came from the sea,' Vergara said, as tears well up in her eyes again.