Earthquake in Chile

Whatever...

Moderators: Víctor Paredes, Belgarath, slowtiger

User avatar
neeters_guy
Posts: 1614
Joined: Mon Sep 14, 2009 7:33 pm
Contact:

Earthquake in Chile

Post by neeters_guy »

Just heard about the magnitude 8.8 earthquake in Chile. Hoping that all our forum friends in Chile are safe and sound.
User avatar
Víctor Paredes
Site Admin
Posts: 5646
Joined: Wed Jan 26, 2005 12:18 am
Location: Barcelona/Chile
Contact:

Post by Víctor Paredes »

Thank you, neeters. I don't know if there are any active forum user from Chile but me.

It has being a long weird day, fortunately I'm on Santiago and my house is an old robust house, as many of the houses here (you must think that Chile is always been built with the idea of tremors and earthquakes in mind). My family and friends are all ok. It was very long intense eartquake which drop out a lot of things on house -mostly books and glasses-. Anyway, there was a terrible noise and all we thought we could die.

The day has been full of little earth tremors and we all have the tension of a possible more intense earthquake any time.

I don't know if you know, but Chile is a very thin country between Andes mountains and the pacific with a population of 15 millions people. Santiago, the main city, is placed relatively on the center and even when there are some impresive pictures of broken bridges and destroyed houses, there are not as much died people as you could expect from one of the biggest earthquakes registered on history. So far there are 30 deceases on Santiago (with a population of 5 millions) and around of 200 in the rest of the country.

The south of the country has received the worse part. I can't tell you too much more than the mass media says, because almost all we know in Santiago come from there. It has been huge and it's very sad to watch the news. All country is paralyzed and it's better to not go out house if it's not necessary.

My little sister -17 years old- was camping with some friends on the slopes of an inactive volcano, around 900 kilometers from Santiago. At 3:00 in the morning they felt the earthquake and thought it was the volcano erupting. They run a lot thinking they had to save their lives and never knew about the proportions of the earthquake until we get to contact her at 11:00 am, because all electricity and phones were dead. When we contact her she ask us if "maybe" we felt a little earthquake on Santiago.

Just yesterday was my birthday. A couple friends, my girlfriend and my brother went to my house last night (I'm very reserved with my birthday, it really embarrasses me to invite people to congrats myself). We had a nice funny conversation without cake, but with this very big horrible gift. I'm very sure me and my friends never forget this little celebration.

Well, it's a very long message for now, I'm writing you close to a safe place because of this earthquake reply paranoia. If I have news I will tell you. If someone has any question, just ask.
Image Image Image Image
Moho Product Manager

www.mohoanimation.com
Rigged animation supervisor in My father's dragon - Lead Moho artist in Wolfwalkers - Cartoon Saloon - My personal Youtube Channel
User avatar
neeters_guy
Posts: 1614
Joined: Mon Sep 14, 2009 7:33 pm
Contact:

Post by neeters_guy »

I had in you mind specifically, but I didn't want to exclude anyone. Glad to hear you and your family are at least safe (and you have internet :wink: ). We're no strangers to earthquakes in California (part of the ring of fire, after all), but 8.8 is a huge earthquake by any standard.

Happy Birthday, btw.
User avatar
jahnocli
Posts: 3471
Joined: Fri Oct 29, 2004 2:13 pm
Location: UK

Post by jahnocli »

Glad you're safe -- and belated happy birthday! It's difficult to imagine an eartquake from the middle of a tectonic plate here in England, but it must be really terrifying...
You can't have everything. Where would you put it?
User avatar
Rhoel
Posts: 844
Joined: Fri Feb 25, 2005 8:09 am
Location: Phnom Penh, Cambodia
Contact:

Post by Rhoel »

Selgin,

Very pleased to hear you and your family are safe - I was watching the earthquake and Tsunami alerts "live" via the USGS feed - I think by the time I eventual got to bed, you had had 24 significant aftershocks including six above 6.0 ... having experienced several 6+ quakes (including one directly under the city of Chiang Mai in Thailand), I can honestly say I'm glad it wasn't me experiencing your 8.8.

Our sympathies go out to all those who lost friends and family in this tragedy.

I hope I speak for all here when I say I hope everything gets back to normal for you as soon as is practically possible.

Keep it safe.


Rhoel


edit
---------------
For those not aware of the scale of the seismic activity, here is a snapshot of the past 24 hours - the yellow squares are from yesterday, the blue ones today and the red ones those which hit in the last hour. This section of the fault line is considered to be one of the most dangerous in the world, having the dubious honour of generating the largest recorded earthquake in history. That 1950's quake killed people as faraway as Hawaii and Japan.

This 8.8 is amongst the top 5 of world records. It's depth was 35 km/20 miles.

Image
Last edited by Rhoel on Sun Feb 28, 2010 6:10 pm, edited 1 time in total.
F.M.
Posts: 497
Joined: Thu Nov 04, 2004 4:29 pm
Location: Between my ears

Post by F.M. »

Wishing Chile a fast recovery!
"and then Man created god!"
User avatar
Rai López
Posts: 2228
Joined: Sun Aug 08, 2004 1:41 pm
Location: Spain
Contact:

Post by Rai López »

Ufff... I heard about the earthquake today and selgin is the first thing that come to my mind, I was in a friend's house and I visit the forum to hope read (more or less) just what I have finally read :). I feel better now that I know that you and yours are as better as possible taking into account the fatal events... so please, continue taking care and being so lucky! Even if its only for we :roll: ...Un abrazo!
...
User avatar
DK
Posts: 2849
Joined: Mon Aug 09, 2004 6:06 am
Location: Australia

Post by DK »

Good to hear you are ok mate. I was worried there for a while ;)

Cheers
D.K
Uolter
Posts: 274
Joined: Fri Jan 22, 2010 11:47 am
Location: Italy
Contact:

Post by Uolter »

I know something about earthquakes, last italian earthquake took my town too. It was not so powerful as this, but anyway a terrible experience. I thought about Selgin too, even if I am new here and I don't know him well as most of you older users. I am happy to hear you're ok, and I'm sorry for your people. I wish the best for all of you.
Genete
Posts: 3483
Joined: Tue Oct 17, 2006 3:27 pm
Location: España / Spain

Post by Genete »

Me alegro de que tu y toda tu familia esteis bien.
Un saludo.
-G
User avatar
Víctor Paredes
Site Admin
Posts: 5646
Joined: Wed Jan 26, 2005 12:18 am
Location: Barcelona/Chile
Contact:

Post by Víctor Paredes »

Thank you all. Sadly, it has been worse than I thought and mass media has made this even worse. There is a huge paranoia about looting and people has become to get guns to defend theirs houses of the ghost of crime.
Obviously as in any crisis of this kind, there have been some crime and looting to supermarkets (which have been closed even in towns where there is no food), but TV and radio has repeated the same images again and again and have created a chaos sensation much bigger than it is.
Police and military have been more worried to protect the private property than help people which needs help.
And our new president, which will assume in a week, is something as a chilean berlusconi which want the half of the population jailed, believing that crime will be extirped with more police and no with more and better education.

Personally, I think we have two tragedies. The earthquake and the way mass media cover it, always sublimating violence.
Image Image Image Image
Moho Product Manager

www.mohoanimation.com
Rigged animation supervisor in My father's dragon - Lead Moho artist in Wolfwalkers - Cartoon Saloon - My personal Youtube Channel
User avatar
dsaenz825
Posts: 97
Joined: Tue Feb 05, 2008 4:51 pm
Location: Texas
Contact:

Post by dsaenz825 »

Glad you and your family are ok Selgin.

Y me alegra saber que tu familia y amigos estaban juntos celebrando tu cumpleaños a pesar de la trajedia.


Hope things get better for you my friend.
I love comments for they help me improve on my weaknesses.
User avatar
Víctor Paredes
Site Admin
Posts: 5646
Joined: Wed Jan 26, 2005 12:18 am
Location: Barcelona/Chile
Contact:

Post by Víctor Paredes »

dsaenz825 wrote:Glad you and your family are ok Selgin.

Y me alegra saber que tu familia y amigos estaban juntos celebrando tu cumpleaños a pesar de la trajedia.


Hope things get better for you my friend.
Thank, Dsaenz. Just to clarify, my birthday was before the earthquake. My birthday was the day 26 and the earthquake was the day 27 at 3:00 am.

Now I more worried about the way the media has covered the earthquake. Military, politics and mass media are using the earthquake with political purposes, they are sowing panic and hate between the people instead controlling and help. They are talking to even apply curfew on Santiago, because of rumors of looting and murderers. Thing which has no sense since Santiago have not any of the problems you see on the south.
It's very sad, I feel horrible to see how they are manipulating people to be happy to have military men all over the country.

Chile is a seismic country, you must know that now, many of the private roads and buildings have collapsed with the earthquake, many people have died because construction companies haven't constructed well its apartments and roads. It's paradoxical to see that old buildings and roads have resisted much better than new ones, but this has a very simple explanation: since the 90's decade all important constructions on Chile have been granted (I don't know if that is the right word, but I mean it has been delegated to private companies) which, to save money, doesn't meet the standards of a seismic country.
Nobody in TV is looking for that people which have made a huge fortune killing people. All they do is repeat over and over how poor people steals in supermarkets. Now the idea is to kill anyone who stealing, people agree this without any doubt, without asking why people is stealing or what we do wrong as society to breed this monsters.
People is afraid of nothing and is asking for more military men ¡even in Santiago where there haven't been even one miserable looting!

I'm very sad of what have happened in my country. Our moral is on the ground, and that tragedy is even worse than the earhquake, because how can you rebuild a country full of murderers and people who never question what TV says?
Image Image Image Image
Moho Product Manager

www.mohoanimation.com
Rigged animation supervisor in My father's dragon - Lead Moho artist in Wolfwalkers - Cartoon Saloon - My personal Youtube Channel
User avatar
GCharb
Posts: 2202
Joined: Mon Oct 10, 2005 2:31 am
Location: Saint-Donat, Quebec, Canada
Contact:

Post by GCharb »

Glad to see you are okay as well selgin.

We did not feel it up here but good frieds of mine felt it in Nicaragua, they also had huge waves there.

Seems the quake changed the speed of earth rotation, not by much, but it did, sort of amazing.

Again, glad to see you are okay, the forum would not have been the same if you had been injured!

G
muffysb
Posts: 144
Joined: Wed Feb 03, 2010 1:00 am
Location: Waterloo, Ontario, Canada
Contact:

Post by muffysb »

Good luck, Selgin. I hope you see some kind of improvement soon. And I appreciate getting your updates, untainted by news sensationalism or political agenda.
Post Reply