I arrived in Santiago just hours before the earthquake (Falling Below The Radar - Chile's Broken Public Relations Machine - April 6). Afterwards, I felt the "disconnect" even within the country between calm in the capital and tragedy just a few hundred kilometres away.
There's no question that hard news follows disasters, so it may be the relative stability of Chile that's keeping it out of the news five weeks after one of the biggest earthquakes ever recorded.
I was there to interview writers and filmmakers for a special series on CBC Radio and my first conversation was with a Chilean novelist whose central character is a seismologist. These programs are airing into next month.
In one interview, Isabel Allende, who flew down to participate in a national fund-raising telethon and personally donated $500,000, raises these very issues of the desperate need for reconstruction, especially with winter coming.
Chile's change in government on March 11 certainly exacerbated a perilous situation, which is much on the minds of the many Canadians with ties to the country, through blood or compassion.