Published: Saturday, 12:50 a.m. CST
POASITO, Alajuela – While Costa Ricans who evacuated their homes after Thursday's magnitude 6.2 earthquake were doing their best to cope, some tourists were shaken up after spending the night in parking lots and buses with no idea of when help was coming – and paying out of their own pockets when it did.

Art classes
For kids over 6, teens and adults, through Feb. 6, Casa del Artista, Guadalupe, next to cemetery, 2234-1233, 2281-0693. 

National Museum summer classes
Folkloric dance, age 65 and up, Jan. 12 and 19, 10 a.m.-noon; exercising, age 50 and up, Jan. 13-14, 9-10 a.m.; karate for beginners, all ages, Jan. 14-16, 1:30-2:30 p.m.; popular dance, age 65 and up, Jan. 19-21, 10 a.m.-11 a.m.; pre-Columbian ceramics, all ages, Jan. 22 and 26, 9 a.m.-noon; pet care, all ages, Jan. 22, 1-3 p.m.; medicinal plants, Jan. 27, 1-4 p.m.; storytelling, Jan. 28-30, 1-3 p.m., National Museum, 2256-4139, 2256-8643.

Pierre Monney in concert
Rock, from the Mundoloco concert series, Jazz Café, San Pedro, www.jazzcafecostarica.com.

Costa Rican emergency workers, with the help of the Colombian Air Force personnel and four helicopters on loan from Colombia and the United States, dug deeper into the devastated town of Cinchona, north of San José, yesterday searching for bodies after Thursday's 6.2 magnitude earthquake.

The death toll fluctuated wildly, depending on the source, but the Red Cross pegged it at least 19.

That number will almost certainly rise as the National Emergency Commission (CNE) yesterday said 89 people were still missing yesterday, three days after the quake hit.

Four Canadians reported missing by Canada's news media, however, are OK, Canadian Foreign Affairs Department spokesman Daniel Barbarie told The Tico Times.

Workers repaired drinking water lines for 98 percent of the province of Alajuela, northwest of San José, according to the Costa Rican Water and Sewage Institute (AyA). But some 3,900 people in the province remained without potable water, particularly in San Ramón de la Virgen and Dulce Nombre de San Isidro, AyA said.

CNE reported 218 homes were damaged but those do not include residences in Cinchona or Vara Blanca and Los Cartagos, which were totally evacuated.

Almost 2,500 people are living in 21 shelters around Heredia and Alajuela provinces.

William Campos, 51, who narrowly escaped from his crumbling home with his wife and son, is worried about looters. Several others with him taking shelter at a school in Roble, Heredia, expressed the same concern.

Evacuees' fears were later confirmed. On Saturday, the Public Security Ministry said, two men had been arrested carrying jewelry and cash stolen from victims' empty homes in Vara Blanca, in Heredia.

Stay tuned for online updates, and see Friday's print or digital edition for more earthquake coverage and analysis.

While nearly everyone in Costa Rica felt the tremors, the first published report of Thursday's earthquake came not from the radio, television or newswires, but from the social networking Web site Twitter.

The report, posted by Twitter user "reiterstahl" at 1:22 pm, consisted of a single exclamation: "TEMBLORRRRRR!!!!!!" Soon after, the site was abuzz with news updates, requests for help and information and offers of aid and donations for quake victims.

The use of Twitter and other social networking Web sites illustrates how digital technology has transformed the spread of news and information, according to Cristian Cambronero, multimedia journalist and director of the firm NiuMEDIA.co.cr. Such changes have blurred the distinction between citizen and journalist.

"Citizens begin to play an active role in the process of generating information, and are not simply readers or listeners, as before," he said. "These tools are based on the participation, interaction and unification of users as protagonists."

National Police seized more than one ton of cocaine this weekend from a warehouse in San Lorenzo de Heredia, north of San José, where they also found a man with a bullet wound to the forehead.

Police received a 911 call just after 9 p.m. Friday from a woman who said she heard a woman screaming for help from the warehouse. When police arrived to the scene, they found Gerardo Varela, 43, who was immediately taken to a hospital in San José he was in serious but stable condition.

Police found 500 kilos of cocaine in the warehouse and another 547 kilos in two cars, according to the Public Security Ministry. The drugs were taken to a drug control facility in San José.

Varela's connection to the drugs was unclear, police said.

The seizure is particularly big, especially for a land operation. Last year, Costa Rican security forces seized more than 10 tons of cocaine, half of which came from two sea operations, although that number was considerably lower than years prior.

Published: Saturday, 12:50 a.m. CST

POASITO, Alajuela – While Costa Ricans who evacuated their homes after Thursday's magnitude 6.2 earthquake were doing their best to cope, some tourists were shaken up after spending the night in parking lots and buses with no idea of when help was coming – and paying out of their own pockets when it did.

Walter Holmes, of the U.S. state of Virginia , was in the restaurant of the La Paz Waterfall Gardens Hotel, located in Vara Blanca, the closest town to the quake's epicenter, eating lunch when the quake hit Thursday at 1:15 p.m. CST. “The restaurant simply exploded,” he said, “I didn't even have time to get scared.”

Holmes and his wife were among 300 tourists trapped overnight in the luxury eco-resort at the base of the scenic Poás Volcano when landslides cut off roads in and out of the luxury eco-resort. The couple spent the night in a bus in the hotel's parking lot, where they scoured the hotel's ruins for supplies before they were evacuated in a helicopter the next day.

"We scrounged up enough chips and food for the night," said Holmes in a phone interview from the Herradura Hotel in San José after being evacuated. Holmes, 66, had visited Costa Rica as part of a cruise tour.

Howard and Cathy Moore, from Orange County , California , were on a sightseeing day trip to the Poás Volcano when the earthquake hit. They, too, found themselves stranded with the hotel guests and little idea of what was happening.

“All we heard was lies, lies, lies,” said Mr. Moore. “(The hotel staff) told us we would get some food at 3 p.m., and then there was no food. … They told us we would get blankets when it got dark, then there were no blankets. … Then they told us the army was coming to pick us up in the morning, and all we had were news stations and photographers.”

Costa Rica has no army, however, since the military was abolished in 1949.

The Moores spent the 24 hours after the earthquake outside with almost nothing to eat and little water, they said, while helicopters swirled above, landed and apparently gave government officials tours of the disaster's aftermath, but didn't pick them up. In the end, they ended up being charged $300 each by a private helicopter company to fly out to a nearby relief camp in the community of Poasito.

Nazario Llinarez, a Spanish tourist from the town of Alta , said he and companion Vicenta Ferrandiz found shelter on a tour bus during the night. The two had been walking near one of the water falls when “everything started to come down around us.”

Ferrandiz said at least 200 tourists were stranded along with them, including families with children.

“We had no type of information, not from anybody,” Llinarez said.

Roberthe Margarithe, a visitor from southern France , said he spent the night on the highway near the hotel under a plastic trash bag to keep off the rain, and only a banana to eat.

Carlos Benavides, director of the Costa Rican Tourism Board, said that all the La Paz Waterfall Garden Hotel's guests were accounted for and without any serious injuries.

The large Poasito camp, 10 kilometers from the volcano, was one of many refuges set up in open fields by small towns in the affected areas in the Bosques de Fraijanes and Poás region, northwest of San José .

Ticos and other stranded tourists did their best in the situation at the Poasito camp, making fires to keep warm and using tarps to ward off the rain. There were also tents, an improvised helicopter landing area and temporary shelters. Newly rescued Ticos and tourists arrived by all-terrain vehicles and helicopter and were greeted by two medical teams, of the six teams working throughout affected areas.

Regional Health Director of Poás, Gilberth Arias who oversees the half dozen medical squads, had been there since 6 a.m., when workers reportedly had 73 injured on the premises. Helicopters and ATVs have made the search for missing people more efficient, but operations are far from running smoothly.

“I know there are still people trapped, and we need to get them out of there as soon as possible,” said Arias, as a helicopter landed behind him.

Lorena Morales sat at another camp in Dulce Nombre de San Isidro in her makeshift home, made of tarps and string, watching her son play soccer with other boys. Despite being forced from their homes and living outside, the atmosphere was not one of misery.

“We had to get out of the house because it was too dangerous, and there was no point after the earthquake in going back in – no electricity, no water, and everything we own in ruins,” said Morales, recounting the previous day's events. “So we've been here, and everyone I know is fine, thank God.”

Water was distributed to families in the area Friday afternoon. Most people had gone without water since the earthquake.

Luis Arce was one of the many distributors making their way through the area. Despite his own losses – broken television, motorcycle, lights and plates – he was trying to help out the people in his area.

“It's been really hard … but all we can do is make the best of it, right?”

Tico Times reporters Blake Schmidt and Leland-Baxter Neal contributed reporting to this story.