Car becomes home for reporters in Chile

By by Sara Sidner, CNN’s New Delhi-based internationa | 05 Mar 2010

Trying to report the Chile Earthquake has posed some serious logistical issues for journalists. Our entire CNN crew for example photographers, correspondents, producers all of us jammed into cars to sleep overnight.

We were not alone. An entire street was filled with cars doubling as beds, although a couple of local crews had tents.

The only other option was to sleep on the hard concrete outside the collapsed apartment complex where we were all set up waiting for word on any possible survivors.

We worked so late into the night in and around the city of Concepcion that because of the curfew we couldn't leave our area.

Even if we could leave, the apartment where our CNN crews were planning to stay looked unstable and no one dared sleep in hotels that were several stories high after what we'd seen and felt so far. Instead we opted to wait out the aftershocks in the cars. Through the night they came; some light, others jerked the car from side to side making it feel like someone was giving us a hard shove in an rocking chair.

On day four there is still no electricity or running water for residents and as visitors the same goes for us.