A todos los amigos chilenos de Boing Boing, y toda la gente de latinoamerica que tienen familiares y amigos allá, les saludamos y esperamos por lo mejor para ustedes y sus familias.
An 8.8 earthquake struck Chile last night, killing at least 150 people, leaving some half a million people homeless, and setting off tsunami activity that now threaten islands in the Pacific, and coastlines from South America to Canada. Related quake activity has claimed lives and caused structure collapse in Argentina.
Chile sits along the seismologically volatile "Ring of Fire," and has a long history of strong earthquakes. While the force of this quake was some 800 to 1,000 times stronger than the quake that recently struck Haiti, the destruction and loss of life, by early estimates, seems lower—in part, say some, because the country has more wealth, better infrastructure and architectural standards, and is generally well-prepared.
As I publish this blog post, the National Weather Service reports that the waves hitting the Marquesas Islands in French Polynesia were smaller than forecast, causing some to believe that the coming impact on Hawaii may be less than initially feared.
A few early resources here, please feel free to share others in the comments:
* Photographs at Boston.com.
* Google: chilepersonfinder.appspot.com
* NOAA's tsunami tracker
* USGS: Surviving a Tsunami – Lessons from Chile, Hawaii & Japan
* USGS: ongoing notifications of aftershocks in Chile. As I publish this post at 11:15am PT, there have already been 50 aftershocks, many of which were over 5.5 in magnitude.
* Once again, Robert Mackey at NYT's The Lede Blog is doing a great job gathering loose ends into must-read blogging.
(some items via @seanbonner, @mgorbis)
