El Campo

Open fields near the banks of the Rio Laja.

Early afternoon near Villa Mercedes.

Sunset in Trupan.

Away from the coast, southern Chile is home to a large forestry business, small towns, and miles of untouched wilderness. While the area is not very densely populated and didn´t face the effects of the tsunami in February, people in the southeastern part of the country witnessed a powerful force.

Phillipe Antonio lives with his girlfriend Paz Colonge in Villa Mercedes, between Los Angeles and Antuco. Their home was left behind by Phillipe´s grandparents, and the two moved in after it stood abandoned for three years. During the earthquake, the two stood under a doorway in the middle of the house while the floorboards seperated and shifted, and a window across the room was raised in the air as if it were up a flight of stairs from where they stood.

Phillipe Antonio and Paz Colonge in their home in Villa Mercedes.

In her nearby home, Antonio´s surviving grandmother yelled to one of her sons to grab her shoes when the earthquake started, and ended up running out of the house in her finest heels. Philipe says another uncle was smoking a cigarette at the kitchen table when the disaster occured, and watched his smoke rise slowly through the air as usual while tables shook, cabinets rattled, and outside the ground rolled like waves of grass.