Quake in Chile at 8.8 !

[A-NAT]

Wow! The Haitians are not alone. The Chileans have joined them. Although it is hard to see how extensive the damage is. Of course the quality of construction in Chile is far superior to Haiti.

Reports have some hospitals being moved from damaged hospitals though.

Because of the superior construction though, the damage is more structural than complete collapse. Which that is bad enough.

As of 5:30pm Eastern US 214 people dead from Chile quake.

[hwang]

Oh, my god. The news just came in
My condolences to the people of Chile.
There were even news report about potential tsusnami that is going to follow soon to hit Philippines as a result of the quake. I guess the prediction made just now in the other thread which you've created looks to be a serious projected phenomenon.

[life31]

Ye just read the news too. Seems to be a massive one. The pic in the Local newspaper was totally shocking. In that pic they showed an vehicle ie a car which was almost upturned. Can you imaging the severity of that quake that might have taken there.

[hwang]

Talk about cars. I've even seen images of bridges collapsing. You can imagine the severity of the quake.

[A-NAT]

The damage was more exstensive than I first saw on CNN. The first images showed the severe road damage and couple damaged buildings but later I saw there were some worse scenarios.

I heard one interesting report though concerning buidling damage. One building had collapsed and the Government siad they would penilize them if the building was not up to code! They have strict Earthquake codes in Chile. Not a bad idea.

Fortunately overall the quake had it's worst impact in less populated areas.

[life31]

Thank god that not much death's were reported but the damage caused is certainly very much.

BTW I think the quake was around 8.8 on the scale. Thats really massive! Isant it? BTW any idea what was the most massive one till date in the world?? Was it something around 9.2 reported in the late 60's or still higher??

[hwang]

The worst part is that the whole place is in chaos because of looting and prisoners escaping. That certainly cause things to become even worse. There will definitely a lot of rebuilding works that needs to be done.

[life31]

It would be a lucky time for them and imagine if all the documents or important files get destroyed it would be very hard for the government or security forces to identify those prisoners.

And speaking about the damages its really going to take long to get things back to normal.

[hwang]

Have you guys read about how the quake actually shifted the earth's axis and causes day time to be shortened by microseconds?

[life31]

Hey is that true?? Oh my god thats really something grievous. BTW is Chile an quake prone zone?? I was just surfing about some information until I came to know that the worlds biggest earthquake had occurred in Chile itself and that was around 9.5 during the late 1960.

[A-NAT]

Yes Chile has a long history of quakes. In fact that is why they are very very strict with building codes they say.

They said the 9.5 one was the largest ever recorded. The Indonesian quake was 9.1 I believe.

They said that the Chile quake of Feb is among the 10 worst in measurement.

[life31]

Ye the earthquake prone zones have special codes of construction to ensure maximum safety and stability during earthquakes. BTW all the measurements are in Richter scale I suppose. Recently I read that they also measure something in Marcille or something?? What is that?? Is it bigger or smaller than Richter?? Hopefully something simular to degree and Fahrenheit

[hwang]

Luckily loss of lives are minimal and in this case since the buildings are already designed to comply to the quake requirement, it should help. I think I remember I came across similar documentary series whereby in Japan, the construction of buildings are more strict. Another place for potential quakes.

[A-NAT]

It was interesting how they asked that no one help at first. They were bent on taking care of themselves as much as possible. Kudos ........

Not that there is anything wrong with receiving help, of course.