8.0 earthquake strikes northern Chile | Hacker News Reader

8.0 earthquake strikes northern Chile

latimes.com

52 pointsmef29 comments

I'm Chilean and I live in a "problematic" area. Fortunately it was not that hard. We're kind of prepared (of course, with nature, nobody is actually prepared for something like this) and the Government and the people are already evacuating those areas.

The sad part? A lot of people is evacuating using cars, and streets doesn't gave so much space to handle all that traffic. Internet and Mobile networks are still working and that helped to reach to almost anyone.

ONEMI, which is the emergency organism here, already published the expected hour the waves will arrive to those problematic areas, so some cities have plenty of time to evacuate.

Flights are suspended in both Arica and Iquique, both cities who are near the epicenter.

Is there anything worth taking photos of, or do you know of any decent photo sites? Glad it wasn't that hard and your Government is competent!

Not really. I think tomorrow will be a better moment to take some, given the fact that everything is happening by night. I have some pictures from the old 8.8 earthquake on Flickr[1] from a City called Angol (very close to the epicenter of the 8.8 magnitude)...

[1]: https://flickr.com/photos/marlexsystems/sets/721576274358393...

Take a look of some of the most recent pictures here: http://www.latercera.com/multimedia/relacionado-articulo/201...

Here's a site where you can monitor the sea level live: http://www.ioc-sealevelmonitoring.org/station.php?code=pisa (as long as the site is up. Multiple measuring stations available there)

For now the highest is 2 meters. If the site is not working, here's a screenshot from right after it began: https://twitter.com/severestudios/status/451151233739288576 After that it went wildly up and down.

Keep in mind that a tsunami can have wildly different heights and properties in different places.

I am from Chile... live on Santiago though, far away (2+ thousand KM) from the North.

AFAIK there have been no casualties. People have been evacuated from the coastal areas all over Chile (even in the south for precaution).

Cheers.

So far 2 dead, 3 seriously injured according to Reuters.

http://www.trust.org/item/20140402024844-z0fmt

According to our president, 5 are dead (she's live on TV right now).

I lived in LA for 7 years and experienced a few 3.0+s on older four-floor or so apartment complexes. Now I'm living ~7 miles away from a fault in the bay area.

Always have water and supplies.

And I hope ad-hoc/mesh wireless networking technology takes off sooner rather than later. http://www.wired.com/2014/03/apple-multipeer-connectivity/

I never considered this technology could be used during a disaster. That is a brilliant use case that could save lives. No phone, no power, trapped under rubble this could be your lifeline.

Well, it hadn't really occurred to me that it could be used for localization exactly, just for building an adhoc communication channel. :)

The one problem is that batteries still haven't caught up. We need easily deployable, emergency wireless charging stations. :) And solar-based ones for those who aren't stuck under rubble.

>"And I hope ad-hoc/mesh wireless networking technology takes off sooner rather than later."

Definitely.

I became fascinated with the idea of mesh networking for disaster response after seeing the 2011 east coast earthquake [0] disrupt communication for many people.

I kicked the idea around to a few folks and became pretty discouraged at the consistent "I don't get it" responses.

0: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2011_Virginia_earthquake

There have been 9 aftershocks as of now (around 1 hour 45 minutes after the first quake):

http://earthquake.usgs.gov/earthquakes/map/

Each more than a 5.

> And I hope ad-hoc/mesh wireless networking technology takes off sooner rather than later

Are you familiar with the Serval Project [0]? These guys are working on exactly this solution, for exactly this (and other similar problems).

[0] http://www.servalproject.org/

I was not. Thanks!

Drones, a la Facebook, might also be a solution under severely damaged infrastructure, it occurs to me now.

Scary stuff. Personally my wife and I have decided it's time to get serious about creating a disaster kit. The "big one" could hit any time.

Hope nobody was hurt in Chile or South America.

It's been updated to 8.2. No casualties reported so far.

And, actually, a bigger one it's expected in the zone, the "big event".

Do you have any links about "The big event" it seems like in every town somebody "knows" about it

http://www.latimes.com/world/worldnow/la-fg-wn-chile-quake-l...

On a related note, we are adding earthquakes to Riskpulse.com this week. It's amazing how much scattered and rich data there is, but it's just that ... scattered.

Right as my wife and son are flying in to Peru. Like, they're literally in the air en route to Lima now...

I'm in Lima right now, hardly anyone has noticed a thing so for the moment I would try not to worry. Certainly don't know anyone who even felt any tremors.

God, please protect them from harm and danger..

Amen.

Or how about we as human beings do all we can to get people out of there safely, instead of praying for a miracle? "Protecting from harm and danger" after a natural disaster is not how God works.

Sure, I'll just jump into my private jet, fly to SA, and start evacuating them.

I'm sure you saved many lives with that prayer, you must be proud.

I share the same sentiment, and probably would have expressed it in the past.

I've come to the conclusion that when people are in grief or times of crisis, it's sort of being an asshole to point out that they're wrong and not helping. So long they're not promoting pointless measures to the exclusion of useful ones, they're not really harming anyone immediately. YMMV.

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