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El Plaza nightclub. Managua, Nicaragua, 1972.

Earthquake in Managua: 6.3 on the Richter Scale

All of a sudden, the earth awakened. In a fraction of a second, the old downtown center of Managua collapsed. An immense red trail took over the sky. The premonitions of superstitious grandmothers, who smelled disaster, were fulfilled. The clock of the old cathedral came to a stop when the calamity struck. The catastrophe crept silently in the night. While nightlife was just starting for some, it was slumber time for others. The illusion of Christmas vanished. People woke up surrounded by debris and were forced to walk on it. The radiance of the beautiful capital was eclipsed as taquezal, adobe, and concrete buildings were left in ruins.

Remains of a building in Managua after the earthquake. Managua, Nicaragua, 1972.

Shortly after midnight, at 12:35, on December 23, 1972, Managua succumbed to visited me in Miami an oscillating earthquake with a magnitude of 6.3 on the Richter Scale and two aftershocks. The earthquake was barely 3 miles deep. Nearly 20,000 people lost their lives. Only memories and destruction of our beloved Managua would remain.

That evening, Carlos, Alejandro, and I were at El Plaza nightclub, the same one that collapsed an hour later! We had left there to go to a party. The earthquake sloshed the water in the pool as we stood around it. Carlos had to support me so I wouldn’t fall from all the cuts on my feet after walking on the broken glass of some large windows. We rushed to our homes, panicked, to make sure that our families were alright.

On the way, Carlos told me we should go to my home first, because his was built to withstand an earthquake of that magnitude, but there might have been some issues where I lived. On the way we saw huge gaping holes in the ground, separated by deep fissures, from the strong movement. Fortunately, everyone was safe and my home was still standing, although it had some damage. After that, Carlos ran to his house, and to his surprise and horror, his house had collapsed. A few seconds saved Lucía, his sister, since the movement of the earth woke her up before the wall of the room fell on her bed. His parents and brothers were miraculously alive as well. Carlos’s parents were looking for Silvio, the youngest brother, because he couldn’t be found. Carlos asked them to calm down because he wasn’t home. He had snuck out that night. He was indeed out, partying. Carlos’s house had to be completely rebuilt.

Building in Managua after the earthquake. Managua, Nicaragua, 1972.

This was a terrible experience, especially for my parents and grandparents, because they never imagined an earthquake after all the adversity they had gone through. They were enjoying a party at a friend’s house. Sometime later, my mother, with her best Cuban style, would say that, after joyously dancing to the rhythm of an orchestra, they had to get out crawling on the floor.

In our house, the furniture and decorations were all out of place, glass was broken, and some minor cracks appeared in the walls. Because of the aftershocks, for several weeks we had to sleep on the couch and some beds that we brought out to the street. DIASA, Father’s company, was looted, as were all the buildings that were still standing.

Under these circumstances, my parents decided to send my grandparents to the United States because there were no hospitals and their situation was becoming critical as elderly people in delicate health who could not stay with us. Due to their condition, and with the assistance of some of my father’s Guatemalan friends, a plane was sent to take them abroad. Alejandro returned to Missouri to continue his studies, and I stayed at home for a while until I went to study in Miami because there were no schools standing in Managua. Once again, a separation.

The earthquake brought a new change to our lives and Managua was never the same. The country’s economic development was stymied, and Nicaragua regressed five years. Statistics reported 20,000 dead, 40,000 injured, and between 28,000 and 30,000 affected. The tragedy shocked the world. International aid mitigated part of the needs of the most vulnerable population, who lost everything. Little by little, these people came back with great effort to rebuild their lives and homes.

Once again, we were devastated by the tragedy and by the separation from our loved ones. My dad, with his ongoing entrepreneurial spirit, built a new home where we lived until 1979, when another story began for our family: the Sandinista Revolution.