Whole Lot Of Shaking In Chile

Whole Lot Of Shaking In Chile

Every once in a while I like to act like I'm actually a respectable journalist that doesn't just ramble on and on about things and I like to cut my teeth at the hard hitting issues. So right now at 5am on this Saturday morning, I'm going to go into breaking news!

BREAK NEWS!!!! CHILE GOT HIT WITH AN 8.8 EARTHQUAKE

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The massive quake that struck the south-central coast of Chile early on Saturday was magnitude 8.8, the USGS reported in its latest bulletin.

This could be really really bad. So if the USGS is right and it was an 8.8, that puts it near the worst earthquake ever. Oddly enough, the same area got the worst one ever. A 9.5 earthquake back in the 60's which was so powerful that it killed significant amounts of people in Chile AND Japan.

Maybe this is all part of Argentina's plan to get themselves a lot of pacific coastline property. How bad is this sucker? The epicenter is right near the second largest city in Chile with a population of 850k and is 200 miles from Santiago.



It's going to be interesting how external aid helps this one. I wonder how stretched aid agencies are right now, with this happening so soon after Haiti. But most of all, I have to be a good journalist and tell you about how this effects you. In a way, if you're in a coastal city than you're facing the potential of Tsunamis.

tsunami alert

This page will tell you when the tsunami will get to you. If you are on the coast near these locations you might want to go fo a drive inland for a little while. Little advice to all you Hawaiian readers

IF TSUNAMI WAVES IMPACT HAWAII THEIR ESTIMATED EARLIEST ARRIVAL TIME IS 1119 AM HST SAT 27 FEB 2010

Don't spend your Saturday morning at the beach.



As for information coming through, thank goodness we're in the age of computers and we can get up to the minute info on all the locations effected by this. Look at the Twitter feeds coming in about the earthquake.

I am in the La Reina/Las Condes area of Santiago. It's OK on our few streets - lasted about two minutes. It's 0430 now and roads mad with traffic and everyone out in streets fearing aftershocks.
-Andy, Santiago

No light, no telephone, no internet, but everything is okay at home
-marcosko, Chile, via Twitter

I am a university professor that lives in Santiago. This is a massive earthquake since 1986 and the cities resisted well and communications by internet 3G are fine but not mobile phones yet. Santiago seems quiet with a brilliant moon.
-Cristian Bonacic, Santiago

Yes... insightful. See, this is why I don't confirm to the typical journalistic style and why I was pretty much told by my journalism teachers that I suck.. Cause I find those sort of quotes to be not all that informative or helpful. I'd rather poke fun of the stuff. Like say something along the lines of I'm eating chili in support of Chile! or perhaps say something as apathetic as Sorry, gave my money to the last earthquake!



Are these events tragic? Yes. Very much so. But considering that Chile is actually built with some care, unlike Haiti, Chile could and is going to withstand this quake with far less damage in the end. Is it going to be bad? Yeah. It is. But that's what we'll see in the news outlets for the next few days.

It is pretty awesome that we can warn and forecast the Tsunami so far in advance. Sure, it doesn't always help that much, like during hurricane season, you get a category-4 hurricane hitting Florida that kills two people, then a dozen die from running generators inside their homes with no ventilation.

This latest earthquake, as well as the one in Haiti should be a reminder if you're in California or in an Earthquake prone area, you should take this as a sign.. that shit can happen when you least expect it. So perhaps you should check out your earthquake preparedness kit and make sure that you're really prepared with enough water and canned food to last however long it will take to get things back to "normal".

How's that for getting on top of a story?