you are one of the survivors of an earthquake that has affected your city a lot . share the trauma you underwent and what helped you to sail through it . Give a talk for two minutes.
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I awaken to the bed swaying, gently at first, and because I'm half asleep and not from here, I think, "Cool, a tremor." I'm just that naive.
Sitting up, I switch on the bedside lamp. It's 3:34 a.m. The floor is shaking harder now, and I try to stand. A surge throws me backward.
Suddenly my 14th-floor Santiago hotel room comes alive, like an angry animal shaking a smaller one in its teeth. It lurches one way and then the other, and the air fills with the building's inhuman noises: rumbles and groans, the screeching of metal. Around me, pictures thud against walls; drawers open and bang shut; window curtains shriek on their rods.
Then the lights go out.
Panic squeezes the breath from me. The cacophony is more unholy in the dark. Trying to cross the rolling floor toward my suitcase at the foot of the bed, I curse myself for having slept naked. I am tossed against the corner of the desk and then to the ground. Lying on my back I yank on pants, then T-shirt and sandals, even as I think, "Just get out!" Something heavy crashes near my head.
I shouldn't even be here now. After three idyllic weeks as instructor at a writers' retreat outside Santiago, my flight home from Chile the previous evening, Feb. 26, had been cancelled because of engine trouble. I'd considered myself lucky to be put up at a luxury hotel.
As I pull myself to standing, sensations and images swarm my mind. I realize I'm whimpering. I don't consciously think that I won't see my husband and sons again. I just sense this, profoundly.
I careen my way to the bathroom and steady myself under the door frame. Isn't this what one is supposed to do? But the building is writhing and this doesn't feel safe.
Hauling open the door of my room, I expect to find people. The lights have burst on and it's blinding in the still-quaking hallway. Incredibly, there's no one about. My mind is screaming, but I don't even call for help.