Brick by brick
This is the seventh in a series of stories about Harvard’s engagement in Latin America. First there was only gentle sleep, but suddenly and horrifyingly it was shattered by tremors, and confusion, and destruction, and floods, and flight, all leading toward tragedy. An 8.8-magnitude earthquake struck Chile on a February night in 2010, toppling buildings and driving thousands into the streets. The quake, the sixth largest recorded by a seismograph, triggered a tsunami that ripped houses from their foundations and hurled fishing boats into downtowns. Nature’s powerful one-two punch killed hundreds and changed the lives of millions of Chileans. “We thought the sea was going to swallow us,” said Gladys Ulloa Ortiz, a resident of the small southern coastal town of...