National and international impact of the earthquake of the year 2021 in Chile
Introduction
Chile is a land of catastrophes, to our credit we have 3 of the 10 largest earthquakes in history (including the largest registered in modern history, in Valdivia, May 22, 1960, 9.6 ° and a long romance with volcanic eruptionsAnd tsamot of diverse magnitude, Chile is a country that awaits its next natural disaster with tranquility, earthquakes are unexpected natural catastrophes, there are no valid methods of prediction to date, although popularly in Chile we expect one every 10 to 15 years.
Three characteristics make the particularly dangerous earthquakes, their unpredictability, their great destructive potential;and subsequent replicas and tsunamis that usually last from 2 days to several weeks intensifying the first wave of devastation, then we will review a brief summary of the catastrophe and the local and global health response, mainly in the immediate response, the first 30 days.
Impact
Next, there is a brief infographic that summarizes the initial impact of the earthquake, the damage count and affected areas. It should be noted that due to a serious uncoordination at the national level, the ONEMI regulatory entity was not informed of the tsunami by the Supervisor Shoa entity, the Tsunami alarm was not issued and the country’s coast was not evacuated
National
On Saturday, February 27, 2010, the Ministerial Authorities, in the aspect of health, coordinate through the Undersecretariat of Assistance Networks and the Department of Emergency and Disaster, which operated until March 26 when it was coordinated in the Onemi.To close the critical stage of the first response, the first activity that is coordinated from the capital is the cadastre of damages and impact, to know the status of the care networks, infrastructure, operation capacity and immediate needs of the population.
The information collected in this first stage revealed the damage to the health network mentioned in the previous section of this document, so the first actions corresponded to the relocation of health teams, re-opebable the less damaged centers to their maximum capacityPossible, install campaign hospitals in areas where there were no operational care centers, supply of elements of different nature (portable radiography equipment, autoclaves, laparoscopy equipment, medications, vaccines, antibiotics, etc.) and human personnel, which were received through international aid as well as reassigning personnel from other areas of the country.
Each regional health service was responsible for making its own diagnosis of damage and raising the requirements for its communities, exceptionally through a “Supreme Decree of Health Emergency” administrative powers to health services were delivered to the capacitySanitary of Private Centers, to ensure patient care.
It is important to note that most of the care delivered were of a traumatological nature, an epidemiological surveillance system was implemented that included the 14 most affected areas (Curicó, Talca, Constitution, parral, among others) in order to maintain an early traceability for Gastrointestinal diseases, respiratory diseases, mental illnesses, ectoparasites among others, due to the conditions of overcrowding, limitation of access to drinking water, room of shelters, among others; There were minor outbreaks isolated from diarrhea, pediculosis and scabies in shelters, which suggests that the population has two important characteristics, on the one hand does not overwhelm health centers after catastrophes and tries to go only to necessary care, and on the other hand , personal toilet habits are well rooted in the population, even entering the winter campaign (May) there was no unusual frequency of respiratory diseases, it finally confirms the usefulness of early epidemiological surveillance to provide for the aggravation of situations of emergency.
Finally, multiple administrative measures of a legislative nature were necessary to allow the reconstruction of the country, however the earthquake occurred 13 days after the mandate of President Michelle Bachellet (doctor, socialist party) and the beginning of the mandate of President Sebastían Píñera ( Entrepreneur, national renewal) which, being of opposite political coalitions, implied a change in the entire major ministerial and confidence positions of the government, including a change in the strategy of assistance management of the affected communities, this interruption meant A delay in administrative orders, some strategies adopted, mainly of a social nature that were suspended and were not subsequently retaken, the deepest by the population was the Mental Health Protection Plan in emergencies and disasters, in force since 2008, which, which It was not socialized to mayors and communities and did not become implemented. However, various community groups were organized at different levels to respond to this need as we will see in the next point.
Local
The communities stripped and affected in the earthquake showed an overwhelming resilience, as we will see below, they did not passively receive the assistance of the State, on the contrary, the despair of the citizens and the wave of supermarket looting and supply centers, the government responded by protecting private interests with military force and establishing touches left in the catastrophe area, thus criminalizing the devastated communities. However, the communities showed a deep sense of coherence and lent the first aid even among the affected settlers.
Examples of this is the search and rescue of survivors, either under the ruins of buildings in Concepción as in the fishing communities on the coasts, during the night of the tsunamis and in the middle of the swarm of replicas that overwhelmed the country for 2 weeks,The same citizens were the labor that moved debris in search of their loved ones.
University groups and professional groups (Medical College and College of Nurses) moved to the communities to surrender as labor in care, organization and reconstruction, mediated by the organization of community leaders, who were key to enableTransient care centers between ruins.
Special mention deserve the groups of women who, from the community space, gave continuity to the traditional roles of caregivers and (even when many of them work outside the home) to the role of housewives, homeless, lifting the structure of the home inHostels, the women were, together with the elderly, the population most beaten by the earthquake, carrying most of the care work they organized in common pots to provide food, worked closely with rescue missions, preserved healthof the population with strict hygiene measures, but above all they were the ones that suffered the greatest psychological wear during the first month being those who contributed emotional containment measures in the community.
International
In the first instance, the Chilean government decided not to make a call for international aid until a clear panorama of the magnitude of the damage, the first call for international aid was made on March 1, from that first call until July 2010, Among the requests to the Chilean International Community, he requested campaign hospitals and rescuers to attend the equipment that had been working for 3 days, in addition to water purifiers, bridges, electrogen equipment, among other highly valued inputs, and experts in damage evaluation, Chile He received humanitarian aid from 31 countries, including 12 Latin American countries (it is considered that only one month before the earthquake in Chile, the earthquake had occurred in Haiti), the international organizations that attended the coordination were the OAS, The UN and the EU, which was managed through the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, on the other hand the PAHO worked directly with the minis Health thermal for technical assistance and assistance related to medicines, hospital supplies, equipment, real estate etc.
conclusion
In this document I have focused only on the immediate characteristics of the catastrophe, the extension of exploring the reconstruction work is unabordable a small frame, reviewing the history of the earthquake, the first and most important conclusion is how clear it becomes the fact ofThat catastrophes are not distributed in the same way through society, the same social inequalities in health that we see on a day -to -day basis are magnified in times of crisis, which impact exponentially more devastatingly to the most fragile communities,The tragedy is also distributed unequally.
Another fundamental point is the impact that the political change had on the reconstruction strategy, the earthquake and the posterior tsunami (which was not alarmed to the population avoiding the evacuation of the coast) was wielded as a political argument and consumed much of the debateNational, together with the looting images that criminalized the affected populations, diverting the focus of the debate of the victims of political yellow, the reports of the Government of Sebastián Piñera are fundamentally quantitative and successful, with a close social and community look (which isevidence in the non -implementation of the mental health plan in emergency situations and disasters).
Finally, I must highlight the role of communities, which when they are not properly organized by the State, they organize themselves, presenting a deep human resilience, collective and self-care coherence which is reflected in the limited and almost non -existent outbreaks of diseases of diseasesgastrointestinal and respiratory infectious post earthquake, even considering the arrival of winter only 2 months later.
Looking back I would expect that we would have learned from this catastrophe enough to face the current pandemic in a better way, however the results of the country again have forgotten 10 years after 50% of Chileans live with less than 500 dollars per month a month, and the Government’s Hospitalocentric Management has not been more illuminated than the quantitative look of the 2010 earthquake.
References
- Lists of Earthquakes – Wikipedia [Internet]. [Cited 2020 Jun 16]. Available from: https: // in.Wikipedia.org/wiki/lists_of_ephquakes#largest_ephquakes_by_magnitude
- Pan American Health Organization (PAHO). The earthquake and tsunami of February 27 in Chile [Internet]. Vol. №3. Airena;Available from: https: // iris.Pah.org/handle/10665.2/10037
- Rivadeneira P, González N, Guzmán S. Epidemiology of the disaster, earthquake / tsunami Maule region, February 27, 2010. 2010; 14 (1): 118–32.
- Government of Chile. Terremoto and Tidal Reconstruction Plan of February 27, 2010. 2010; 1–47.
- Tagle el, Nazarit ps. The 2010 earthquake in Chile: response from the health system and international cooperation. Rev Panam Public Health/Bread Am J Public Health. 2011; 30 (2): 160–6.
- González c. The role of the place and the share capital in the postdesastre community resilience. Approaches through a case study after the earthquake of 27/F. Eure. 2013; 39 (117): 25–48.
- O’Ryan g. M. Reflections and feelings from a team of volunteers from the Ministry of Health and the Medical College of Chile, after the recent earthquake. Rev Med Chil. 2010; 138 (3): 270–3.
- Magaña Frade I, Silva-Nadales S, Rovira Rubio R. Catastrophe, female subjectivity and reconstruction: contributions and challenges from a gender approach for psychosocial intervention in communities affected by the earthquake^ies;Catastrophe Feminine Subjectivity and Reconstruction: Contributions and Chall. Ter.PSYCHOL [Internet]. 2010; 28 (2): 169–77. Available from: http: // www.Scielo.CL/SCIELO.PHP?script = sci_arttext & pid = s0718-480820100002005
Leave feedback