Yesterday, Jan. 8th, we drove from San José to Guanacaste. When we were near San Ramón, on the PanAmerican highway or Ruta 1, we found out on the radio that there was a quake, minutes ago, around 1:20 pm. We didn’t feel a thing. The epicenter, we were told, was near the Poás volcano with a magnitude of 6.2 on the Ritcher scale. The radio station started receiving calls from people who experienced it, mostly coming from Vara Blanca, Heredia. A phrase that both the radio host and officials kept repeating was, Es importante mantener la calma. At first, it seemed there were no casualties, people were just shaken and some roofs had fallen. The provinces of Alajuela, Heredia, Cartago, and San José were put on red alert. Later on, a report came that two girls had died, buried under a landslide as they were walking home. Near Puntarenas we started listening to Radio Monumental, where the noted journalist Amelia Rueda was reporting. We didn’t arrive in Potrero until 6:30 pm, and she was on the whole time; she must have been on the air over seven hours, talking without a break. It was fascinating to drive for hours while listening to her program on two levels: 1) hearing about the events as they unfolded and 2) seeing how Costa Rica uses the Internet in journalism. Amelia Ruedas was connected to Twitter, Facebook, her website, and the telephone, and relayed messages from relatives, victims, Red Cross spokespeople, ministers, and other officials. At one point, she received a call from a worker in La Paz Waterfalls Hotel, who said hundreds of tourists and workers were trapped there. So Amelia talked to the Red Cross who informed they were on their way but it was going to take them a while since there were no roads and rivers had overflowed. Amelia thought that if vehicles couldn’t get there, that they use animals. She urged neighbors of the region to lend their horses. A listener then called saying neighbors were already lending out their ATV vehicles. Amelia called the woman in the hotel and reassured her that help was on the way and suggested that they sing songs to calm the nerves. She then received a call from a distressed woman in La Chinchona, the town most affected by the quake, saying there were many injured people, bleeding away, and no help, and that a helicopter came to pick up some ICE employees and although they begged, they didn’t take any of the injured persons. This naturally enraged Amelia. She wanted to hear from ICE officials, she wanted to call private helicopter companies and charter one. She wanted to call don Óscar (the president) and demand they send helicopters right away, that we cannot wait until the next day to rescue those poor people. She demanded immediate action. Shortly afterwards, one of the rescue spokespeople let her know that no helicopters could fly because of the thick fog but they will send helicopters as soon as they can. We arrived at our new apartment at that point of the story and started unloading the car.
Accounts of the earthquake:
Amelia Rueda’s website:
YouTube™ videos of live TV shows during the quake: