OK here's my report, power has just came back a few hours ago:
Fortunately my family and I are OK. No one died or was hurt. The earthquake was on Saturday 27th at 03:34 local time (06:34 GMT) and I wasn't in Santiago when all happened. I was in my house at
Catemu, 5th region (most of my family also lives there) when the earthquake begun. It lasted for 57 seconds and the power went off just about on the earthquake's peak. The eq's strength was about 8.5 Richter on the epicenter, but near us was about 7 to 7.5, so damages in town were low. We have the fortune to live in an antisismic-built house so it wasn't damaged (just a few broken jars and unimportant stuff). However a part of a side wall fell down (but my neighbor builds walls, so he'll pay for the damages
you can see a pic
here).
Damages on my relatives' houses were also low but greater than ours. In Catemu there was no electrical power nor water service during Saturday. Water came back on Sunday's evening and power came back a few hours ago. We had or water and food provisions so there wasn't any problem with that.
My father and I went to Santiago (our capitol city) on Sunday morning to check the status of our apartment. There wasn't any damages at all, just a few scratches on paint.
Because of the power shutdown, we weren't able to comunicate for most part of the weekend. A few minutes after the earthquake we tune some argentinian radios, being able to tune local radios a few hours later. National TV was broadcasting minutes after the eq, but we had no battery TV so we weren't able to watch the news during the whole weekend. Phone communications collapsed minutes after the event and slowly came back by the evening of Saturday.
In Santiago however most of the city had power, water and phone services by Sunday.
Although in the towns near us stuff are relatively OK, the situation in most of the south-center of the country is really fucked up:
Old houses and poorly constructed buildings fell down in Santiago, Valparaiso and other cities relatively far from the epicenter.
Most houses have serious damages on Talca, Maule and Concepción, cities close to the epicenter.
A lot of people died due to lack of communication in certain sea towns on Maule's after the sea penetrated the shore for about 3 km. Fishing boats ended on streets.
45 ft. waves were registered on San Fernandez island.
People have looted markets in most cities in order to provide themselves with food and water. However the situation has been regularized over the few hours and order has came back.
Has been imposed a curfew in Maule and Bío-Bío regions to aid government and military organizations on the reconstruction works.
At 15:13 local time, the death toll is 723.
Even though the mess, the country has responded very well to the disaster. Chile has a long history of earthquakes and is very prepared of that. Consider that for being one of the top ten earthquakes ever registered, damages had been pretty low. Reconstruction won't take more than a year. Yes, it's a tragedy but it could have been much worse.
A few galleries of damages all over the country:
www.emol.com/especiales/2010/coberturas-especiales/terremoto-en-chile/fotos.htmI will answer any of your questions
Peace.