Surviving Chile's tsunami

Witness History

BBC

History, Personal Journals, Society & Culture

4.4 • 1.6K Ratings

🗓️ 27 February 2025

⏱️ 10 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

In 2010, an 8.8 magnitude earthquake struck the coast of Chile.

It shook the central and southern parts of the country for more than three minutes, causing widespread damage which destroyed buildings, bridges and roads.

The earthquake triggered a tsunami in the Pacific Ocean, which travelled 600 kilometres west to the remote island of Juan Fernandez where Alison Campbell and her family were on holiday.

Hundreds of people died, and thousands were left injured and homeless.

Alison Campbell tells Jane Chambers what it was like when the tsunami struck.

Eye-witness accounts brought to life by archive. Witness History is for those fascinated by the past. We take you to the events that have shaped our world through the eyes of the people who were there. For nine minutes every day, we take you back in time and all over the world, to examine wars, coups, scientific discoveries, cultural moments and much more.

Recent episodes explore everything from football in Brazil, the history of the ‘Indian Titanic’ and the invention of air fryers, to Public Enemy’s Fight The Power, subway art and the political crisis in Georgia. We look at the lives of some of the most famous leaders, artists, scientists and personalities in history, including: visionary architect Antoni Gaudi and the design of the Sagrada Familia; Michael Jordan and his bespoke Nike trainers; Princess Diana at the Taj Mahal; and Görel Hanser, manager of legendary Swedish pop band Abba on the influence they’ve had on the music industry. You can learn all about fascinating and surprising stories, such as the time an Iraqi journalist hurled his shoes at the President of the United States in protest of America’s occupation of Iraq; the creation of the Hollywood commercial that changed advertising forever; and the ascent of the first Aboriginal MP.

(Photo: Rescue workers in Juan Fernandez. Credit: JORGE AMENGUAL/AFP via Getty Images).

Transcript

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0:00.0	On Radio 4, the more you listen, the more you see.
0:04.7	Hello, I'm Brian Cox.
0:05.6	And I'm Robin Ince, and this is The Infinite Monkey Cage.
0:08.3	In this series, we're going to have a planet off.
0:10.8	I feel like Jupiter wins.
0:12.8	And after all of that, we're just going to chill out a bit.
0:15.9	We're talking about your bog standard.
0:17.8	Ice, not the fancy one.
0:20.1	Science with funny bits.
0:21.9	The new series of the Infinite Monkey Cage.
0:24.1	Listen on Radio 4 and BBC Sounds.
0:32.5	Hello and welcome to the Witness History podcast from the BBC World Service with me, Jane Chambers.
0:39.0	I couldn't see her and I shouted and shouted, and that was the worst moment for me,
0:44.1	absolutely the worst when I lost sight of her.
0:46.9	I'm taking you back to February 2010 and the remote Juan Fernandez Islands in the Pacific Ocean.
0:54.3	Alison Campbell, a Chilean woman on holiday with her family,
0:58.0	is woken in the middle of the night and told to run a tsunami is coming.
1:02.8	Her story starts earlier that night, 600 kilometres to the east.
1:07.1	One of the most powerful earthquakes on record has hit Chile and sent a tsunami sweeping
1:13.5	across the Pacific. More than 300 people are known to have died. It's around 3.30 a.m. on the 27th of
1:21.9	February 2010 and a massive earthquake strikes off the coast of Chile.
1:32.7	It shakes the central and southern parts of the long, skinny country for more than three minutes,
	...

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