Quality of Life: An Austral Update

Today's post deals with a survey on the quality of life in southernmost South America, plus a commentary on a surprising air accident in Chile.

Quality of Life: Buenos Aires & Santiago Measure Up

Every year, the Mercer Consulting group prepares a survey of the world’s best places to live, rated according to standards of air quality, traffic congestion, personal safety and the like. I last commented on this in 2008, when Montevideo came in 76th of 215 cities in the survey. Buenos Aires (pictured above) then came in 78th and Santiago de Chile (pictured below) 88th.

This year, Mercer has completed a similar survey for The Economist Intelligence Unit. It consists of just 140 cities, of which Melbourne (Australia) topped the list, with seven Australian and Canadian towns in the top ten. Paris came in 16th and London 53rd; the highest-ranking US city was Honolulu, at 26th. Harare (Zimbabwe) came in dead last.

In the new survey, Buenos Aires comes in 62nd, Santiago 63rd and Montevideo (pictured above) 65th. By that standard, the three Southern Cone capitals would appear to have fallen in the rankings, relatively speaking, but the rankings alone are a little misleading. To quote from the report summary, “The performance of the most livable cities reflects minimal variation between the scores of the top locations…In this context, some 63 cities (down to Santiago in Chile) are considered to be in the very top tier of livability, where few problems are encountered.” Given relative small statistical differences, says the EIU, “both cities can lay claim to being on an equal footing in terms of presenting few, if any, challenges to residents’ lifestyles.”

One can quibble, certainly, with the methodology of such studies, which may be skewed toward the needs of foreigners who work in these cities or travel to them for business reasons. That said, the difference between the best of the so-called “developed” world and the often underrated metropolises of the south is far smaller than many people – mostly those who have never been there – appear to believe.

Juan Fernández Plane Crash a Surprise

Every three years or so, while updating Moon Handbooks Chile, I spend about a week on Isla Robinson Crusoe, in the Juan Fernández archipelago, about 670 km off the coast of Valparaíso. Only small commercial aircraft (20 seats or fewer) serve the island, where I expect to return in November, landing at an airstrip on the dry southern side of the island.

The only larger planes that land here are C-130 transports belonging to the FACh, Chile’s air force, which perform special medical missions (with a population of barely 600, Robinson Crusoe has no hospital, doctors or dentists, though it does have a clinic). Yesterday, though, a FACh plane crashed into the Pacific, apparently killing all 21 persons aboard. Among the victims were five members of a TVN television crew planning to document the island’s recovery from the earthquake and tsunami of February 2010.

Frankly, the crash surprises me greatly. Every time I have flown to Robinson Crusoe, the airline has issued a warning that, if high winds or other weather conditions are too risky, they will return to the mainland. That’s never happened to me but, in one instance, I did have to wait an extra day in San Juan Bautista because the conditions – even though clear and sunny - were considered too precarious for that day’s flight from the mainland.

Crusoe's Tsunami

I have just returned to Buenos Aires from Santiago, where I spent two-plus days exploring Chile’s post-quake capital and barely had time to sleep, let alone write any extensive blog posts. Within a few days, I’ll have a summary up, but for the moment I’ll just note that things are returning to normal - despite a brief Sunday night blackout that extended from the Atacama desert town of Taltal in the north to the archipelago of Chiloé in the south - and that flying out of Santiago’s Aeropuerto Internacional Arturo Merino Benítez was utterly routine, even if the main international terminal building remains closed.

At present, I would not hesitate to visit Chile’s top destinations - San Pedro de Atacama, Easter Island (Rapa Nui), and Torres del Paine. These sites were left totally untouched by the February 27 quake, and intending visitors should have no qualms whatsoever about traveling there. The southerly lakes district, just beyond the quake zone, is up and running as well, but overland transportation is slower than usual because of highway damage between Santiago and Temuco. At the moment, flying into Temuco or Puerto Montt and then traveling far shorter overland distances to popular towns such as Pucón and Puerto Varas would be a better option.

One place I would not recommend visiting, though, is one of my favorite destinations in the country. On Isla Robinson Crusoe, the biggest island in the Juan Fernández archipelago, the post-quake tsunami swamped the immediate shoreline of San Juan Bautista, the island’s only settlement. For a community of only about 600 people, the loss of just a few lives was devastating, and several if not most of its tourist facilities were destroyed, as can be seen in the FACh (Chilean Air Force) aerial photographs provided me by a Santiago friend, conservationist Hernán Torres. To enlarge the before-and-after photos for more detail, just click on the image.

According to spokesman Miguel Díaz Gacitúa of CONAF (Chile’s national park service), with whom I spoke on Tuesday in his Santiago office, the island’s airstrip is undamaged, but San Juan’s tiny port facilities will need an emergency replacement. Presumably, all rebuilding in the village will take place beyond the line of tsunami damage.

Díaz Gacitúa adds, by the way, that there has been no noteworthy damage to any of Chile’s national parks or other protected areas - even in the hardest-hit regions - and they are open for business as usual.

Massive Earthquake (8.8) Hits Chile

In 1960, the Chilean city of Valdivia, about 800 km south of the capital of Santiago, suffered the greatest magnitude earthquake ever recorded - 9.5 on the Richter scale - and much of the country suffered from a subsequent tsunami. Early this morning, the city of Concepción, about 500 km south of the Chilean capital, came dangerously close to that number, being hit by a temblor measuring as high as 8.8 hit. In this region, where many city inhabitants still use wood for cooking and heating, the danger of fire is as great, or greater, than that of falling buildings.

Fortunately, so far at least, the death toll of 78 is far lower than might be expected in other, more densely populated parts of the world - Santiago, Chile’s only megacity, is distant from the apparent epicenter. Nevertheless, Santiago’s Aeropuerto Internacional Arturo Merino Benítez (pictured above) suffered enough damage in the passenger terminal - fallen walkways and many broken windows - that it’s closed until further notice. Authorities are diverting flights to other Chilean airports and to the Argentine city of Mendoza, just across the Andes from Santiago.

Likewise, several overpasses have collapsed along Ruta 5, the country’s main north-south highway, and other roadways have bent or buckled - the television network TVN has shown cars hitting unexpected bumps at high speed but, to this point, none of them has lost control. Over the past couple decades, the quality of anti-seismic construction here has improved, but there are vulnerable older buildings in neighborhoods such as Barrio Brasil, where the Basílica del Salvador - damaged in a 1986 quake - has been propped up by a bulwark that collapsed yesterday and demolished automobiles parked alongside it.

Apparently the quake has had a lesser impact on tourist-oriented areas such as the southern lakes district, around Puerto Varas and Puerto Montt, though it was felt there. Other major destinations, such as San Pedro de Atacama and Torres del Paine, are well beyond the damage zone.

Because of the epicenter’s depth, there appears to be little chance of a tsunami along the Chilean coast, but the quake could trigger big waves in North America and across the Pacific. On the Juan Fernández archipelago, about 600 km off the Chilean coast, a mini-tsunami has apparently forced the inhabitants of San Juan Bautista, the only town, into the nearby hills.

The United States Geological Survey has just published an online summary of the quake, which has been followed by aftershocks as high as 6.9. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration has issued a tsunami advisory for coastal California and Alaska, and a tsunami warning for the state of Hawaii.

Paine's Birthday, Crusoe's Road

On the 50th anniversary of its creation, Chile’s most famous national park - Parque Nacional Torres del Paine - has a new commemorative postage stamp in its honor. Every year, the park gets nearly 150,000 visitors, many of them foreigners who come to gaze at what might be the world’s single most scenic mountain range. According to Montevideo-based MercoPress, it is also getting a substantial budget increase - Chile’s agriculture minister says the park is responsible for seven percent of the southerly Magallanes region’s GDP - and a high-tech fire-monitoring system to help avoid the sorts of blazes that damaged its forests in 1985 and 2005.

Meanwhile, according to the online Santiago Times (subscription only), the future is less certain for Parque Nacional Archipiélago Juan Fernández, some 650 km off the coast of Valparaíso. On its Isla Robinson Crusoe, where the 18th-century Scottish castaway Alexander Selkirk’s solitary four-year exile helped inspire Daniel Defoe’s famous novel, Chile’s Ministerio de Obras Públicas (MOP) is proposing a road to connect the island’s airstrip with the village of San Juan Baustista.

At present, an hour’s sail or a four-hour walk - one of the most scenic and solitary I’ve ever done - is necessary to reach San Juan from the airstrip. It passes from the island’s arid south side - as dry as the Atacama desert - to the temperate rainforest on the north side, crossing the divide (pictured here) at the point where Selkirk watched every day in hopes that a ship would arrive to rescue him. As part of the park, the trail passes through forests rich with endemic plant and bird species, and passes a huge colony of the rare Juan Fernández fur seal at Tierras Blancas. A road would not only eliminate this stunning hiking route, but would do incalculable damage to the flora and fauna of an island that has (and needs) few motor vehicles. There is no real need for a road through this rugged, unique terrain, on a route that would not be significantly faster than the boat.