Durham , North Carolina ( CNN ) -- The earthquake of 2010 is not the first one of this magnitude in Chile 's long , traumatic history . Almost 50 years ago , I was watching a soccer match in the National Stadium in Chile 's capital when , seconds after a gigantic rumble from under the ground terrified the 60,000 fans attending the game , the mountains suddenly disappeared . I am not exaggerating : The stadium was rocked like a cradle and rose in the air , blotting out my view of the Andes , and then , fortunately for all of us , settled back to stability . We had just been through what is still considered , at 9.6 on the Richter scale , the greatest seismic activity ever recorded . We soon learned that the epicenter had been more than 400 miles south of Santiago and that the devastation was massive . On top of the quake itself , which had flattened towns and killed thousands , a tsunami had swept our coast , causing even more havoc . A few months later , when I traveled to that region , I saw for myself the masts of large sunken ships in the Valdivia River many miles inland , and the remains of colossal iron-smelting ovens in Corral that had been twisted beyond recognition by the rush of the invading waters . The human toll was unbearable . From the survivors , I heard of men , women , children heading for the hills and being sucked out to sea as if they were driftwood . I remember all this now so many decades later as I watch , this time from afar , this time from the safety of my home in the United States , yet another ruinous earthquake destroy my country . I remember el gran terremoto de 1960 to offer myself some sort of historical perspective on the recent earthquake , offer myself some trembling ground , so to speak , beneath my feet , as I try to come to terms with the possible meaning of what has just happened . It is obscene to compare cataclysms as if they were contestants in a horror show -- this one cost so many billions , that one cost so many lives -- and yet , to measure what has changed in Chile between these two major disasters in the intervening half century may help us to answer what is , after all , the most urgent question of the moment : What lies ahead ? Chile is today a far more prosperous country than it was 50 years ago . Its economy is considered the most dynamic and advanced in all of Latin America -- even though still ravaged now by a grossly unfair distribution of income . This relative affluence of Chile ( the GDP today is 15 times more than in 1960 ! ) leaves us better equipped to deal with our current catastrophe , as we have human and scientific resources that we could scarcely have dreamt of back then , to the point that our wonderful outgoing president , Michele Bachelet , initially informed the international community that the country would not require foreign assistance ( she has since modified that stance and aid from abroad is starting to arrive ) . Paradoxically , however , Chile 's advances in technology , its abundance of material goods , its many highways and bypasses , its enormous fleet of planes and cars and high-rises , leaves much more of the land and many more of its citizens open to distress , and makes the economy more vulnerable . The richer you are , the harder your potential fall . The more roads you have , the more cracks in the pavement . This wealth , furthermore , has not been accumulated without severe social consequences . Back in 1960 , the whole nation came together to rebuild the country . I spent the month after the earthquake , like many university students , collecting money , food , blankets and mattresses that were sent down to the south in caravans filled with enthusiastic volunteers . It was a lesson in solidarity that I have never forgotten -- those who were most deprived gave so much , cared so much , sacrificed so much for their wounded compatriots . If Chile is more opulent now , it has also become a more egocentric and individualistic society where , instead of a vision of social justice for all , the citizenry is , for the most part , engaged in a frenzied race toward ever more consumption and subject , of course , to the accompanying stress and anomie . Like all major misfortunes , the current tragedy of Chile can be seen as a test , a chance to ask ourselves who we really are , what really matters as we rebuild , not only our wrecked hospitals and broken roads and fractured bodies , but our damaged identity . I believe that the deepest wells of that solidarity and fellowship I witnessed when the earthquake of 1960 reduced my land to rubble is still inside most of the people of Chile , and will constitute the main source of our efforts to lift our country up from its desolation , the reason why we may be able to once again prevail , as so many times in the past , against the forces of blind nature . Fifty years ago , the people of Chile found a way to survive all that death and destruction and I can only hope that this time we can painfully , painstakingly , even joyfully , do it again . The opinions expressed in this commentary are solely those of Ariel Dorfman .
In 1960 , an earthquake shook Chile , the most powerful one ever recorded . Ariel Dorfman recalls that the quake brought Chile 's people together to rebuild . The country was divided into two parts : a wealthy and prosperous northern region called Santiago ( now known as Chile) and a poor southern part of the country called Valparaiso ( today ). Dorfman says nation 's `` deepest wells '' of solidarity , fellowship can help it rebuild again .