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How big an impact will the Chilean 8.8 earthquake have on Chile and the world?

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Sun, 2010-02-28 13:05 — mdmcdonald

For such a large earthquake, it would seem that the death toll should be far higher, unless the buildings and infrastructure were designed to face a huge earthquake with low casualties.

Beyond the immediate death toll, what is the impact of this 8.8 Mw earthquake on Chile and the world?

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Sun, 2010-02-28 13:06 — mdmcdonald

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/01/world/americas/01chile.html

Sun, 2010-02-28 18:04 — mdmcdonald

From our friend Josh Berry at Save The Waves: the best way to get help to the rural Chilean coast devastated by the earthquake:

Friends & STW supporters,

By now all of you have heard about the massive earthquake and subsequent tsunamis that occurred in Chile this wkend. The earthquake epicenter was just 5km from our Vigilante Costero (Coastkeeper) office is located and where Save The Waves' environmental advocacy efforts are focused. The earthquake and tidal wave damage to the area where we work is devastating. Our friends, colleagues and neighbors in coastal Chile need our help more than ever before. Not a lot of news is coming out of the region because of the massive destruction but we know that it's bad. The good news we’re getting is that loss of life thus far appears to be relatively low because the "slow" quake start allowed people to evacuate to higher ground. But the destruction to infrastructure is devastating, including to structures, drinking water, power, transportation, and communication. This means that aid & relief in the next few weeks will be crucial to help save lives.

Because our ongoing environmental work is in the exact same region as the disaster, Save The Waves is is uniquely positioned to help direct humanitarian relief efforts in the region. We are therefore organizing a humanitarian aid trip to the Buchupureo, Curanipe, and Constitución regions and we are traveling this week ASAP with a doctor, medic and other support. Josh Berry, our enviro director, is going to Chile to act as director of relief efforts, and act as translator, local contact, logistics coordinator and lieutenant. We are fundraising now to cover costs of travel, shipment of supplies, and local relief efforts. We also are partnering with Waves for Water (http://www.wavesforwater.org) to provide water filters for clean drinking water, something that’s crucially needed right now.

Many of you have been a great source of support and inspiration to our Chile program. Now our friends in Chile need all of our help more than ever before.

All donations we receive for Chile earthquake relief will go directly to humanitarian aid in the devastated regions at the quake and tsunami epicenter. Our efforts will be focused primarily in the more rural coastal areas between Santiago & Concepcion, the area closest to the epicenter, as most international aid will focus on the cities. Your donations will be spent directly on the ground in Chile. Since we are a small and nimble organization with years of experience in coastal Chile, your support for this disaster will be extremely effective. No bureaucratic filters, no delays. Donate and learn more at the link below.

Donation link and more info here:
http://www.savethewaves.org/news/view/111

Media contact, inquiries, and for the latest news from the ground in Chile:
Josh Berry
(415) 578-8388
josh@savethewaves.org

Thank you for your support!

-Dean
--
Dean LaTourrette
Executive Director
Save The Waves Coalition
831-426-6169 wk
415-596-7873 mbl
www.savethewaves.org

* * * * *

From: "MALINDA_CHOUINARD"
Date: February 27, 2010 8:04:00 PM PST
To: "#ALL.PATAGONIA" <#ALL.PATAGONIA@patagonia.com>, ,
Subject: doctors leaving Wednesday- SAVE THE WAVES

Buchupureo, Pichilemu, and Curanipe (area north of Concepcion, south
of Santiago) are small farming villages; where the fishing boats and
crops are pulled by oxen. They are the heart of "secret" Chile surf.
Big relief efforts are centralized in the high population areas of
Santiago and Concepcion; so we have heard little from our friends along
this hilly coast. CNN just showed a map and said "no one lives here". In
fact many of our friends live from Concepcion north along the coast, in
dozens of these small hillside villages.
Chile is a sophisticated country, with the best doctors and rescue
systems in the world. But, any remote rural area's building codes are
more casual than the city. This coast is dear to our hearts; we hope
this effort by SAVE THE WAVES can begin helping our friends, and their
staff, rebuild these quaintly inhabited villages.
Please join us in telling all your friends about SAVE THE WAVES'
efforts.
I am also very happy to report Dr. Alex has written from Pichilemu.
I copied his note below, as we are thrilled to find him safe.
Mpc
-----Original Message-----
From: Josh Berry [mailto:josh@savethewaves.org]
Sent: Saturday, February 27, 2010 5:54 PM We are traveling to the
worst-hit regions of Curanipe and Cobquecura, bringing a doctor and a
paramedic from USA with the medical supplies. Daniel Mullery, paramedic;
and South African doctor friend, Arnie Coronal are flying into Santiago.
Got a flight leaving CA this Wednesday, arriving SCL on Thursday AM .
We need donations to cover travel costs and materials, please encourage
your friends to be generous! Because we are leaving so soon please send
Donation to:
http://www.savethewaves.org/news/view/111
Thanks again,
Josh
-----Original Message-----
From: Josh Berry [mailto:josh@savethewaves.org]
Sent: Saturday, February 27, 2010 12:44 PM Pacific Standard Time
Amigos,
Today's Chile earthquake epicenter was about 5 miles offshore of
Curanipe, the town and region where our Vigilante Costero office is
located and where all of our environmental advocacy efforts are focused.
The earthquake and tidal wave damage to the area where we work is
devastating. Our friends, colleagues and neighbors in coastal Chile need
our help more than ever before. Not a lot of news is coming out of the
region because of the massive destruction but we know that it's bad and
may worsen.
Save The Waves is organizing a humanitarian aid trip to the Buchupureo
and Curanipe regions and we are traveling this week ASAP.I am going to
Chile now to act as translator, local contact,logistics coordinator and
lieutenant. We are fundraising now to cover some travel costs, medical
supplies, and local relief efforts. You have always been a great source
off support and inspiration to our Chile program. Now they need all of
our help more than ever before.

All donations will go directly to support our relief efforts locally in
the Buchupureo and Curanipe areas of coastal central Chile. Your
donation is tax deductible. We will also bring all of the supplies that
we can carry. Dig deep my friends. Tell your friends, too. Thanks, Josh
Environmental Director Save The Waves Coalition
http://www.savethewaves.org josh@savethewaves.org
831.426.6169 office 415.578.8388 mobile
------------------------------------------------------------------------
--------
From: alexsoto_cl@yahoo.com [mailto:alexsoto_cl@yahoo.com]
Sent: Saturday, February 27, 2010 6:45 PM
Subject: Re: Earthquake-Chile
Hi everybody,
Thanks to be worried. I'm 100% fine at Pichilemu. Problems with
comunications. Last night I was in a Restaurant at the beach and the one
next door fell down, afterwards sunami and everybody running away. No
fatalities here but many houses lost at the beach. Still little
earthquakes.
Tomorrow back to Santiago.
Regards and love, Alex

Sun, 2010-02-28 18:06 — mdmcdonald

By Colin Stark, Special to CNN
February 28, 2010 4:23 p.m. EST

Editor's note: Colin Stark, Doherty Research Scientist at the Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory of Columbia University, is a geophysicist and geomorphologist whose research is focused on the effects of typhoons and earthquakes on the triggering of landslides and the erosion of mountain rivers.

Palisades, New York (CNN) -- About six weeks ago, a large earthquake devastated Haiti and killed over 200,000 people. Saturday, a huge earthquake releasing 500 times more energy, devastated Chile and killed hundreds.
So why did the smaller earthquake kill so many more people? And why the sudden spate of disastrous earthquakes in the Americas?
No, the apocalypse is not coming. No, the two earthquakes are not linked in any way. And no, Pat Robertson, you can't blame the Devil or the French. The real answers, for those comfortable with science and the Enlightenment, are tectonics and poverty.
Of the many revolutions of the 1960s, the one that really mattered to geologists was the revolution of plate tectonics. Tectonics is the word geologists use to describe the process by which mountains move and rocks squeeze and crunch.
In the sixties, new data from research cruises and from earthquake seismometers led to the realization that tectonics makes mountains slide sideways long distances. Earth scientists discovered that the Earth has a patchy skin of mobile plates a hundred miles thick and thousands of miles across, and that they move horizontally at a slow but irresistible pace. It's where they collide that our problems begin.
South America is a prime example of this process, one that geologists call "subduction." It's why we have the long chain of mountains called the Andes and it's why countries like Chile and Peru suffer giant, destructive earthquakes every few decades.
Off the coast of Chile is a tectonic plate called the Nazca Plate. Unseen by most, it has been inching its way towards the South American continent, and sliding underneath it, for well over a hundred million years. Since the day that Magellan first rounded Tierra del Fuego it has encroached by 130 feet in a roughly east-north-east direction.
The Nazca plate doesn't slide under the South American plate in an orderly fashion though. It moves in fits and starts, sometimes sticking and sometimes slipping, sometimes here and sometimes there. Along the coast of Chile, patches can get stuck for over a hundred years. When they do finally slip, they go with a bang. All that squeezing energy is released in seconds and an earthquake happens.
On Saturday a patch roughly the size of Maryland came unstuck, unleashing one of the most powerful tremors ever recorded. Fifty years ago, a patch four times bigger and with an area of about 50,000 square miles, the size of Louisiana, slipped and triggered the Valdivia earthquake. Its magnitude has been estimated as at least 9.5, making it the largest earthquake of modern times.
Over millions of years, this tectonic squeezing has formed the Andes and raised the high desert known as the Altiplano. Elsewhere it has created the Alps, the Rockies, the Himalayas, and Tibet. It has also created and distorted some of the islands of the Caribbean, including Haiti.
So that's why some parts of the world suffer from big earthquakes that strike with irregular frequency, while other regions are seismically quiet: it all depends on where the plates meet and how fast they are running into each other.
Knowing this helps us assess seismic risk and mitigate it. It helps us know where the strongest earthquake shaking will hit and roughly how often. Predicting when the shaking will hit is a much greater challenge, and geophysicists are working hard to reach that goal. In any case, prediction is not the real problem: poverty is.
Poverty is what ultimately kills most people during an earthquake. Poverty means that little or no evaluation is made of seismic risk in constructing buildings and no zoning takes place. It means that building codes are not written, and even if they do exist they are difficult, or impossible, to enforce. It means the choice between building robustly or building cheaply is not a choice at all.
Haiti is a tragic illustration of this. Weak building materials and poor construction standards share much of the blame for the grotesque numbers of fatalities, injured and internally displaced people.
Of course it's complicated. Earthquake shaking is a complex process and the chain of causation from earthquake source magnitude through infrastructural damage to human harm involves factors like the type of earthquake fault, its orientation, the hardness of bedrock or presence of wet soil, and so on. A lot also depends on the time of day the earthquake strikes in terms of how many people are inside buildings that could collapse. Population density, distance from the epicenter, and the depth of the rupture are the most important factors of all.
Nevertheless, those countries most at risk of seismic tragedy are not simply those on tectonic plate boundaries, but also those with the least money to spend on protecting themselves.
The opinions expressed in this commentary are solely those of Colin Stark.

For More Information:
http://www.cnn.com/2010/OPINION/02/28/stark.chile.quake.haiti/

Mon, 2010-03-01 04:50 — Liliana Santirso

The Chile earthquake -- at a magnitude of 8.8 -- was much stronger than the one that hit Haiti, but casualties and damages appear to be far less. Why?
The earthquake that struck Chile was far stronger than the one that struck Haiti in January.

But, initial reports show that damage was much more contained. While the death toll of 214 is only preliminary and is expected to grow, it’s still a thousand times lower than that of Haiti’s.

One emergency official quoted by Reuters said the number of deaths was unlikely to increase dramatically.

Because of its long history with earthquakes, which has contributed to an earthquake “consciousness” in Chile, and infrastructure that is built to higher standards, many hope that Chile will be spared the vast destruction that struck Haiti, even as it deals with one of its worst natural disasters in decades.

“Chile has a long story of earthquakes, but I think this was the worst ever,” says Paula Saez, an aid worker at World Vision in Chile.

The 8.8-magnitude quake that struck about 200 miles south of Santiago, is being billed as one of the world’s largest in a century, but it will most likely not go down as one of the deadliest. In part, that’s because Chile sits in the “ring of fire” earthquake zone and is accustomed to massive temblors, including the largest on record, which hit in 1960 and registered 9.5.

http://www.csmonitor.com/World/Americas/2010/0227/Chile-earthquake-much-stronger-than-Haiti-s-but-far-less-damage.-Why

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