[kj] OT : Massive earthquake strikes Chile

[Planetary]

sade1 wrote:

Right now they are evacuating all the local beaches here in Los Angeles (i'm 
assuming all along the So.Cal. as well, since they're all south-facing ) 
because of the possible tsunami.
Also, a gift from Chile t o all the surfers under Southern skies, no doubt 
they're all waxing your boards.

++++++++++++++++++++

It's a non-event here in Southern CA.

I was watching a live feed of the fourth "wave" moving through Hawaii about 
an hour ago.  It's nothing like the 2004 Christmas day tsunami where there 
was a classic giant cresting wave and huge churning surf rolling inland. 
It's basically just the tide pulls out leaving more beach exposed than usual 
over a half hour and gently comes back in over about a 5 minute period. Here 
in Huntington Beach, we were hearing we might get a noticeable tidal shift 
but it's been for all intents and purposes, no one's really noticed any 
change.

However, here's a message from a guy on another list who went through the 
earthquake in Chile:

"I've just read the bored and I appreciate all your thoughts J. Santiago is
in good shape, considering the earthquake was around 7.5 - 8 in Santiago. I
was in my apartment, on the 10th floor. it was very rough actually, and I
thought the building was gonna fall apart, but it resisted very well. After
all, since Chile is a very seismic country, every building and house built
after 1970 are specially designed.

The epicenter was about 400 miles south of Santiago, and apparently that
city (Concepción) is suffering quite a bit. A couple of buildings went down
and apparently there're some 100 people trapped. In some cities we've had
some mild tsunamis causing minor floods. In a couple of our islands, the
tsunamis have affected more than half of the population (say, around 100
people each).

The death toll right now is 147, which I consider really low for such a
strong earthquake (the 6th most violent earthquake ever). As I was writing
this e-mail, we had what I think was our 50th aftershock, of around 4 in the
Richter scale.

After 12 hours, there're still some places in Chile without electricity and
some cities without water too.

I'll try to keep you informed. if you can, please tell everyone I'm ok and I
that I deeply appreciate your thoughts."

T.B.