Report title: Earthquake Assessment Report

Date(s) of field assessment March 6th to 8th 2010 Name and location of site being Region of Maule, Province of , Comunas assessed of Cauquenes, and Chanco.

Plus Region of Maule, Province of , Comuna of Concepcion GPS coordinates of site 71º,00´00´´ W – 36º,00´00” S Principle contact(s) at the site Jorje Rojas, Head of Disaster Response, Cauquenes Province

Geraldo Reyallo, Head of Disaster Response, Cauquenes

See annexe- contact list

1. National Picture

On February 27, 2010 - at 3:34 am in Chile – there was an 8.8 earthquake that lasted one minute and had its epicentre in Bío-Bío region, about 91 kilometres from the city of Concepcion (second city with 900,00 people), and 320 km South of capital (population 5m).

A subsequent tsunami struck much of the Chilean coast line, with the most severe loss of lives and property occurring within a few hundred metres of the sea.

There have been multiple aftershocks in the 10 days since the quake. With tremors of between 5-6.4 continuing to occur.

Figures of those affected remain inconsistent. However, the latest government figures (see annexe- statistical information indicate that)

• Number affected: 1,922,649 million • Homes affected: 813,634 • Homes severely damaged: 200,000 • Killed: 507

The majority (estimated 80%) of those who are displaced are living with host families (friends and relatives), with others in tents and in communal buildings

Public services and infrastructure were also heavily affected: • Water supply was disrupted and remains disconnected in many areas • Electricity and telecommunications remain patchy in the affected areas- this is critically problematic at present. • Hospitals, health centres and schools have been severely damaged, with many non-or partially operational in affected areas. • Road access in the affected areas of region VII and VIII is reasonable. Despite some earthquake impact, most locations are fully accessible. • Santiago and Concepción airports have only recently begun to function affectively again

2. Pre disaster situation:

Chile has one of the strongest economy in the Latin America, with strong GDP growth and per capita income of over $14,000.

It is recognised as a middle to high income country, with largely well functioning basic services across all sectors, including a strong education system with 95% adult literacy. Most international development aid has been reducing.

There was approximately 10% unemployment, with the majority of people working in salaried service industry and relatively low numbers in agricultural production. Those that were tended to fall in to the poorest quarter, including the fishing industry, the most affected livelihood group.

3. Assessment

3.1 Objectives of the assessment - Assess personally the affected areas - Establish working relations with potential government and NGO partners - Prioritize intervention sectors and evaluate and design response strategy

3.2 Itinerary

Following an initial field visit on March 3rd:

- Saturday 7th: Santiago-Cauquenes (9 hours) Contact with ONEMI upon arrival and visiting Central Hospital and IDPs camp at “Estadio Fiscal” - Sunday 8th: Cauquenes-Pelluhue-Chanco. Co-ordination meeting with ONEMI Province Co-ordinator at Aerodrome facilities. Visits to IDPs camps surroundings Pelluhue. Information sharing with Response responsible at both sites (ONEMI + Carabineros Commander Pelluhue). Meeting and feedback with ONEMI-Cauquenes - Monday 9th: Visit tsunami affected city of Constitución. Way back till Santiago (6 hours approx)

3.3 Methodology

- Amended version of IASC assessment tool - Direct field visit and assessment information- separation of staff by sector. - Observation at sites (transect walks), household and individual interviews - Number of interviews to institutional actors: 6 (sector specific and generalist) - Number of interviews to affected population (by site visited): 3 sites x 3 interviews each - Spoke with directly affected and non affected population in camps and within their homes

4. Cauquenes Province

Overview information

Cauquenes province consists of three municipas: - Cauquenas, which includes the main town and rural areas, was severely affected by the earthquake with major damage to homes, health centres, schools and municipal buildings, including the town hall which has been surveyed and will be pulled down. The main water and electricity supply were affected severely. - Chanco, a town and municipa on the coast was also severely affected by the earthquake. A smaller town, but affected in many of the same ways - Pelluhue is a municipality of about 7,000 people on the coast, very seriously affected by the earthquake and subsequent tsunami which destroyed and washed away the majority of homes within 600 yards of the seafront.

Cauquenes Province was already considered a poor province. With weak or closed industrial network, economy was focused mainly on agriculture, fishing and . The area has relatively low level working age population and with a small rate to total children population (32%) compared with other areas of the country.

Numbers of affected children and adults

- 15,000 (0 to17 years old) are estimated to be affected within the province.

Total Affected Death toll Missing Houses Houses to population destroyed be demolished Cauquenes 44000 37000 16 1697 8862 Chanco 11000 8000 44 Not Not assessed assessed by govt by govt Pelluhue 7000 6500 8 Not Not assessed assessed by govt by govt TOTALS 62000 50500 68 700 Estimation of total affected population at Cauquenes provinces: 50,500

Although final confirmed figures are not known from the government or other organizations it is clear that Cauquenes Province was very badly affected by Feb. 27th Earthquake and the later Tsunami. The local structures were unable to organize an appropriate response from the very beginning, hence there continue to be considerable gaps across all sectors.

4.1 Health

At Cauquenes level, measles and other preventive vaccination were done at the beginning of the response by the MoH.

The main- only- stated increase in disease was in respiratory infections. It was reported separately that gastrointestinal diseases were also on the rise. Levels of trauma injuries were low. However there were stated fears around an increase in both respiratory and diarrhoeal disease at the onset of the rainy season given current conditions.

In the province: Two health centres have been fully destroyed: one in Pelluhe and another one in Chanco.

The main hospital in Cauquenes town has been heavily damaged and is operating at about 50% capacity. All main services were continuing but with limited facilities: Surgeries, births, general medicine, haematology testing, X-rays.

# beds in the hospital - 120 (30% precarious) # doctors - 25 # nurses - 50

Key issues:

- As with many public facilities, access to water at the hospital visited was inadequate. Several taps had been damaged, hence distances to water points were too far. - Severe damage to hospital buildings - Many drugs were lost due to disruption to the cold chain. This is now resolved, but supplies were lost. The pipeline has been resolved. - Large items of medical equipment were damaged or destroyed - There was a stated increase in cases of psychological symptoms- from depression to trauma.

One voluntary group (a commercial company were observed to be providing basic support at the hospital). This was the only non governmental actor (apart from individuals that was supporting health services in the province.

Recommendations: - Badly damaged and in need of inputs; equipment, water and sanitation systems and infrastructural repair. - Increased risk of public health related illness, and in responding to the hygiene sector, close coordination with curative health services should be retained.

4.2 Food Security, nutrition and livelihoods

- General capacity of the population to meet their food needs was high, both through their own capacity, that of local voluntary groups (though noted that will not last for long) and through government interventions.

- Currently, wet feeding programmes were occurring in 5 locations in Cauquenes and two in each of Palluhue and Chanco: 10.000 food rations are delivered per day using the schools facilities for that purpose and managed by JUNAEB ( National Basic Education Council) and organized by the Army. The schools were: Los Conquistadores, Rosita O´higgins, Anibal Pinto, Porongo, Ascensión Lara.

- Formal programmes are complemented with temporary coverage by Government and civil society initiative “” which has created a enormous and spontaneous voluntary movement which delivered at random huge amount of aid, particularly food rations. This is distributed both through JUNAEB and directly at displaced sites.

- There were no noted nutrition concerns amongst the disaster affected population and access to food was not a priority for any of the families or individuals questioned.

However there were significant concerns in the food security and livelihoods sector at large. The team did not get an opportunity to consider this issue in detail, and a fuller food security/livelihoods assessment is recommended soon. Key issues highlighted included:

- Disruption to the harvesting season for casual labours, limiting their income earning opporuntiies until at least September - Severe damage to the fishing industry at large- damage to equipment, including boats, storage facilities, and a loss of general assets.

- At a national level the UN reports market price increases have been seen in different places and is negatively Affecting the purchasing power of both affected and non affected populations.

Recommendations:

- Find ways to stimulate short term income earning opportunities for affected families, though cash for work or cash grants. - Further assessment of the livelihoods situation is required, particularly amongst coastal and rural communities. - Advocate for shift in the locations of food distribution points out of schools as quickly as possible.

4.3 Education

The start of school term after summer holidays (scheduled by March 1st to the 8th) was postponed again, in most schools due to damage to buildings, loss of materials and the use of other school buildings as shelters.

Educational data at province level:

# Primary schools 55-60 # Primary students 8000 a 9000 # Primary Professors 1200 # Secondary schools 12 # Secondary Professors 800

Currently: - 70% of student age Children will have not immediately access to educational services. - At provincial level there 3 boarding schools, all of the at Cuaquenes city. At least one of them is used as temporary Army facility - GoCl has expressed the lack of enough engineers to evaluate the affected schools at the moment as priority is to address all efforts on houses

Recommendations: - Support to identification of temporary school facilities and home learning opportunities where required. - Improved coordination with shelter sector to vacate schools currently occupied by armed forces and earthquake affected population - Links with child protection activities to support the emotional recovery of children from earthquake impacts.

Shelter.

- At least 5,500 homes are seriously damaged in Cauquenes town. The numbers for Chanco and Pelluhue are still being assessed but visual observation shows damage will be even greater.

- The majority (reportedly 80%) of the approximately 30,000 people displaced in the province are staying with friends and relatives. - Spontaneous camps (2 in Cauquenes, 6-8 in Pelluhue and 0 in Chanco) have developed throughout the province. None have these have received any formal shelter support. Camps are unplanned without adequate WASH facilities. Many people have broad large quantities of household items with them, but were beginning to complain about the dropping night time temperatures. - Current temporary solutions- household/holiday camping materials are not suitable for medium term use and will quickly become damaged. In most cases they will quickly stop resisting water in the rainy season from April. - Some NFI’s, mainly clothes, blankets and mattresses had been distributed but no shelter materials.

- In the homes that have been damaged, the government has begun a process of assessing earthquake affected buildings and declaring that they are either, habitable, non-habitable (to be destroyed), or repairable. The process is in its formative stages and at least 70% of buildings in some areas have not yet been assessed. - Affected people placed shelter as the highest priority when questioned. All were worried about being forced to move from the location where there buildings were previously and were complaining of a lack of information on the next steps in dealing with the shelter situation. - There was little knowledge of the shelter response strategy at local level and this limited local authorities’ ability to communicate information to affected populations.

Recommendations: - Support an increase in the quantity of structural engineers to speed up the process of assessing damaged homes and buildings - Strengthen the coordination and communication link with affected population - Provide advice and support (tools/materials) to households that can repair their homes to enable them to do so as quickly as possible - Expedite the distribution of temporary shelter materials and support coordination of other services (particularly WASH in camps)

4.5 Water Sanitation and Hygiene (WASH)

The assessment highlighted that earthquake had a major impact on peoples access to clean water and sanitation facilities. It was not possible during the assessment to meet with water engineering staff and so a number of details require further assessment.

Water - For several days, the mains water supply in Cauquenes town was cut off. This has just been resumed but is only reaching certain parts of the town and only 30% of the population in the province currently have access to mains water. - The government reports that 90% of the population are receiving free potable water from tankers, but the quantity remains low at c. 1-3 litres/person/day. - In homes with a water supply, increase in the residences in homes has reduced the access to piped water in those locations (rationing). - In camps visited, none had mains water- some had one central tank (on one occasion not covered, on two out of three occasions empty). The water is refilled by government, but this is reportedly inconsistent. - Water was the second highest priority for the affected population after shelter- few had access to quality household level water collection and storage.

Sanitation and hygiene: - In homes throughout the province, flush toilets are common - Toilet facilities in some homes with additional families residing in them were reportedly being overused- and the intermittent water supply - Of greater concern was in camps where there was no evidence of adequate toilet facilities or use. In the stadium in Cauquenes there was one toilet for c. 100 people and it did not appear to have been used. In another camp in Pelluhue there was one toilet for about 30 people and in another there was none. - Most people indicated that they were defecating in the open- there appeared to be a temporary- ‘manage until we move’ feeling- but no evidence that people would be moving soon. - There were no specific hand washing or bathing facilities at any of the sites. - Though levels of hygiene awareness were not fully assessed, general hygiene practice (defecation, hand washing, food and water storage) were not high. One off radio broadcasts on hygiene practice were reportedly undertaken soon after the earthquake. - Waste disposal is through private garbage collection companies. They have recommenced activities in Cauquenes town (reaching 60% of pre earthquake coverage) but not in Chanco or Pelluhue. - No drainage ditches were observed, with a likelihood of flooding in the forthcoming rainy season.

Recommendations: - Strengthen the consistency of access to adequate quantities of water in displaced camps, through a fuller assessment and appropriate interventions: more consistent tinkering with increased number of tanks in the short term is required. - Distribute water storage and collection items at the household level. Consider the need for household level water filters- it was not possible to quality check the water. - Increase access to basic hygiene materials, both to relieve burden on household assets depletion and strengthen hygiene practices. - Engage in context appropriate hygiene promotion activities. - Ensure hand washing facilities at all toilets. - Support general camp coordination and planning to increase the consistency and quality of facilities at large. - Initiatate a system of water quality testing.

4.6 Protection:

- No cases of unaccompanied children were observed or known to government authorities. - Some concerns from local authorities questioned- and one teacher- on the psychological impact of the earthquake on children. - Key concerns around children out of schools with very little structure to their days. In the short term some are seeing this as an ‘adventure’ , but others are withdrawn and looking to get back to school quickly. - The relocation of large numbers of familias in to new areas creates new risks of abuse for children.

- No single agency is currently responsible for the children’s aspect of the response and there is confusion in coordination on the roles of a number of child related government actors.

Recommendations: - Strengthen the coordination of the response amongst different child focussed agencies - Carry out some context appropriate child protection awareness amongst displaced community and humanitarian responders, to ensure prevention of exploitation or abuse. - Initiate a programme of child friendly spaces for children of all ages, which include specific and professional psychosocial support for children.

5. Response Capacity

- Governmental capacities are overloaded and operationally blocked. Different national entities (as per PDI- National Police-; Carabineros – Armed National Police-; ONEMI and Chilean Army) are in charge at random and without clear mandate (out of the areas under military control- Concepción Region mainly) making a response. - Government at the local level, has little direct information on the strategic direction of the response, thus preventing good interaction between government and the affected population. - There is an evident gap in co-ordination capacity and very low budget (2 million USD per year) and 200 staff only, from ONEMI, the national entity in charge of organizing the emergency response; ONEMI

- In general terms the aid provided is not sufficient, not very focused on needs and not arriving to all- particularly isolated, rural- areas.

- National Civil Society is not as strong as in other regions of the country. Few NGOs active and not have operational capacity for emergencies approach. However, this is compensated in part by a very good will and commitment to the response. All NGOs reached by assessment team and concentrated under the same umbrella “Acción”.

- INGOs: Very limited presence in the response overall. No other INGOs present in Cauquenes. Good opportunities for coordination and collaboration, particularly with Oxfam where there are clear programme synergies.

- UNOCHA is established and SC has been in coordinating with them. Formal coordination mechanisms are only now beginning. No technical coordination groups are currently up and running. These will be required- particularly for shelter shortly.

6. Media

- Extremely well covered at national level, including 2 days of TV Marathon for fundraising last week. Low coverage by international media. Possible reasons: - Close to Haiti earthquake with huge media coverage. - Chile known as a country will its full development in 7 years time, with initial idea of having enough capacities to respond. - Government position that did not invite a strong international response.

6.1 Advocacy: The national media’s strong interest in the response- particularly with an incoming government (11/3/10) make this a string advocacy tool for issues arising.

7. Action

7.1 Currently: SC is distributing hygiene items, has identified materials and partners for child friendly spaces and is identifying technical capacity in water and shelter.

7.2 Proposed action:

Save the Children’s response should seek to add value in two principle ways: 1. By providing technical capacity for coordination, training, assessment and advocacy with government who have taken up responsibility to respond to this crisis. 2. Direct service delivery where needs cannot be met

Sectors: Initially (and due to limited resources: - Child Protection (including supporting access to education): Child Friendly Spaces, ECCD, Psycho social support, training for government and humanitarian community. - WASH: Hygiene items and water storage, hygiene promotion, meeting gaps in govt provision of water- tankering/supply; technical advice at local level on humanitarian standards. - Shelter: Structural engineers for: support to government authorities at provincial level in assessing/surveying damage and advising on repair; direct advisory support to earthquake affected families in decision making and recommending options for relocation/ repair of earthquake damaged homes.

7.3 Partners: - Working closely with: ONEMI and Ministry of Interior at Provincial level; Local partners: RAICES and Red de la Infancia, ACHNU - Partnership with Oxfam

7.4 Risks

- Slow Govt response due emergency dimension could extend the emergency situation towards recovery much as initially supposed - Aid (including international) can be concentrated in major populations (Constitución, Concepción p.e.) leaving isolated lower rate areas as Cauquenes and particularly rural areas - Government change (March 11th) can provoke further strategic confusion. - Winter proximity (heavy rains, wind and cold scheduled) can make even worst affected population situation. - Unlawful context in some of the affected areas (mainly in Concepción) left a difficult social context which could deteriorate further social conflicts at the time of population relocation.

7.5 Internal risks: - Adequate and timely technical capacity. - Continued cooperation with relevant authorities and partners - Appropriate operating permissions continue - Cooperation of key stakeholders

8. Logistics

- Access: To the main sites, mainly by road, main road from Santiago is “Ruta 5 Sur” 350 Kms with motorway partially damaged with traffic jams in both directions. - There is an airstrip/helicopter landing sites 7 km from Cauquenes towns which is the main hub for distributions and planning. - Road transport in the area is straight forward, without an essential need for 4x4. Almost all roads are fully paved.

- The nearest principle supply hub is Talca (90 minutes north of Cauquenes), but basic supplies are available in Cauquenes. - At the time of the assessment there were lack of basic items as traders were only beginning to re-function effectively. This is expected to normalise by mid March.

- Access to accommodation, office space and warehousing does not appear to be problematic.

- The mobile phone network is strong throughout the province in the areas travelled.

9. Security:

- A curfew was on during the time of the assessment and controlled by Army from 22.00 PM to 06.00 AM day after. It can be extended by direct Chilean President for a maximum of 6 month period before ask the Congress and extension. - After shocks continue on a daily basis. - Beyond these, no significant security concerns were observed

Although Chile response should be considered for SC as a medium response in terms of capacities. It is clear for assessment team and other agencies that the participation of international agencies have an added value in the current context. From SC mandate perspective, there are enough children needs identified to consider the urgency of a SC emergency response.

It will represent also to SC International an opportunity to strength and reinforce the LAC region capacities in staff, knowledge and CRE reorganization meanings.