Chile earthquake!!

[John Sayers]

Wow 8.5 - I hope Stuart and Javier are OK - our thoughts and prayers are with you guys.

[donal_finn]

Huge Tsunamis headed for Hawai and French Polenisia.
Awful stuff.
Blessings and prayers for all out there.
DF

[Soundman2020]

Thanks for thinking of us John! We sure can use your prayers.

Not sure about Javier (communications are spotty right now), but I'm OK. It was a pretty rough ride, I can tell. Hit about 3:40 AM, and gave us a real good shake. I've lived her for 25 years, and that is most certainly the biggest one yet. Various reports rate it at somewhere between 8.3 and 8.8. It was a pretty rough ride. The epicenter was close to the city of Concepción, about 400 km south of Santiago, but the fault moved along a front of about 350 km, all at once, so it hit a large chunk of the central area of the country, and was felt thousands of km to the north, as well as in Argentina.

There is some major damage to infrastructure in some places, covering several provinces and about a thousand km of the country (from north to south): bridges down, roads mangled, some buildings collapsed, either partially or totally, railway lines shut down, buses not running, etc.. The Santiago airport is closed, for at least several days, probably weeks or months: the runways are fine, but part of the terminal collapsed (the 4th floor ended up on the 2nd floor). Etc. etc.

We were without power for several hours were I am, and the Internet connection only just came back up a few minutes ago. Much of the country is still without power, and communications are intermittent. Cell phones work some of the time, but not all of the time. The cops are telling people to use phones as little as necessary, to keep the system clear for emergency calls. The power utilities are saying the same about electricity: use as little as possible, since several power stations, transmission lines and substations are off-line.

My family is OK, and our house is OK (just very minor stuff, like bookshelves collapsing, glassware falling out of kitchen cabinets, etc.), but no apparent structural damage. My youngest daughter is actually in Concepción (the epicenter), staying with friends for the summer vacations, and she is fine, just a little shook up (physically and emotionally). But many many people here were not so fortunate. The death toll so far stands at 122, and is expected to rise as the day goes by.

I'll post more info later, if anyone is interested.

For those of you with religious convictions, we sure could use your prayers down here in Chile.

- Stuart -

[John Sayers]

Thank God you and your family are OK Stuart. _ Yup my prayers are with you all. I do hope Javier is OK.

We have tsunami warnings along our east coast but it will mainly be large waves, should reach us in a few hours time.

Yes - please keep up the reports.

[John Sayers]

I see that Javier is online so he must be OK

[blaumph2cool]

When I first heard abount the quake I thought "Oh no, Stuart". I am glad to see you and you family are okay. I will definatly pray that God keeps you in Safety.

[John Sayers]

bump!

[jbassino]

I tried to post earlier but my internet connection was collapsed. It's still very slow
I'm fine!!
Thanks Brien also for sending me a PM. I appreciate your corcern.

Im in La Serena right now. Its about 400km to the north of Santiago. and almost 800km away from the epicenter. However, it hit us with a 4 earthquake. It was a good shake here as well. Not that hard but a lot of movement. The thing is we were more worried about tsunamis. I'm staying in my parent's aparment that is just in front of the beach. So the first thing I did while the earth was shaking was going to see the ocean.
I also contacted some people and my studio is also fine. They couldnt go inside since its locked but the house at least is intact (is a very old house). I hope my monitors didnt fall down or stuff like that.

[jbassino]

Also. I'm stucked here in La Serena. All flights have been cancelled

[John Sayers]

Good to hear from Javier. I hope they get the airways up and going soon.

[AVare]

I am glad that both of you are okay. My prayers are with you.

Andre

[jbassino]

Thanks Guys
I'm finally back at home. I took a bus and my house is okay. Just a few things broken and our Stereo system was on the ground. I hope its okay cause it had the last sony vinyl players made. Other than that everything is in order.
I'll visit my studio tomorrow. I hope everything is okay there as well

[John Sayers]

My radio today in Australia has been arguing about the pronunciation of Chile. i.e Chilay v Chilli.

they concluded that people of Spanish background say Chilay whereas everyone else says Chilli and a person form Chile is a Chillian.

[jbassino]

http://vozme.com/index.php?lang=es

[John Sayers]

hey - I just posted this on the Wombat Hole post

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YzFw9a0Ar00

cool stuff