Terremoto. FUERZA CHILE.

FUERZA. CHILE.

Santiago.

Curico.

Rio Claro

Santa Cruz

This past Saturday, at around 4:45 AM, local Chilean time, an 8.8 magnitude earthquake struck Central-Southern Chile. 10 minutes later, a 15 meter tsunami made its way towards the Chilean coast. This was the 5th most powerful earthquake ever recorded in history. There have been aftershocks, some with a magnitude of 5.0 occuring every few times an hour since the first one. Bridges collapsed. This quake has damaged 500,000 homes, and has severed the main north-south freeway in multiple parts. Poorly constructed apartment buildings in the sector of Maipu in Santiago completely collapsed. Bridges fell. The epicenter of this horrible earthquake was off the coast of the Maule Region VII. This earthquake was felt through most of the country, and greatly affected parts of the 6th region O'higgins, the 7th region Maule, and the 8th region Biobio. The city of Concepcion, only 70 miles from the epicenter and is on the coast. It suffered extensive infrastructural damage. The major cities from Curico, Talca, Linares, Chillan, and Concepcion all were greatly affected. Many older parts of Santiago with more poorly constructed buildings recieved a lot of structural damage. Many people, either to afraid to sleep in their apartments, or unable to, were forced to sleep on the street or in parks. The majority of affected areas had no electricity or safe water for all of Saturday. Many smaller towns still do not have electricity, and Constitucion, and Talca, (I believe, ) are still without access to water and electricity. As of now, there are 708 recorded deaths, most coming from Region VII Maule, with around 100 from BioBio and 100 from O'Higgins. Recently, there has been a rise in looting. While some are desperate, others are opportunistic. Police in Concepcion are overwhelmed. The federal government made an agreement with Chile's major supermarket companies, in which supermarkets will give away sanctioned amounts of basic food to anyone who needs it. Although the death toll is at 700, it will rise in the next few days, when more searching is done on the coasts, and in collapsed buildings. The port city of Constitucion was the closest to the epicenter, and the tsunami took many victims. The president, Michelle Bachelet, said that " the catastrophe is enormous... there's a number of those dissapeared that I would say is still rising".

It's difficult to find exact news, as it is changing constantly, but I have heard that numerous small towns, such as Dichato, have been completely destroyed. Santa Cruz, a historic pueblo in O'Higgins region is in ruins. Rengo was just far enough away from the epicenter to not have as much destruction. It is hard to say how long Chile will need to recover from this. This will exhaust local, regional, and even national government. Only time will tell what affect this will have on Chilean society. CHI CHI CHI. LE LE LE. VIVA CHILE.