HELP RED CROSS AND UNICEF HELP VICTIMS OF NATURAL DISASTERS

[nancyk58]

The situation in HAITI on 28 February 2010

 

UPDATES OF THE SITUATION IN HAITI ON 28 FEBRUARY 2010

 

SVT Text: 11 DEAD IN HAITI FLOOD

FLOODS and LANDSLIDES hit southwestern Haiti yesterday. 11 killed and 500 inmates evacuated.

Haiti's third-largest city of Les Cayes that avoided destruction in the January earthquake was swamped by up to 1.5 m of water. The water in the prison rose by ½ meter.

5 were killed in the district of Geli near Les Cayes and 3 in the town of Torbeck. 3 are reported dead elsewhere in the region. The floods may be an indication of what the capital - Port-au-Prince - can expect during the rainy season which begins in 3 weeks.

 

BBC World News: RAIN TRIGGERS DEADLY FLOODS IN HAITI

At least eight people have been killed in floods triggered by heavy rain in Haiti, officials have said. The deaths occurred in or near the southeastern port city of Les Cayes which was swamped by more than 1.5 m (5 ft) of water.

Buildings were affected including a hospital and a prison where more than 100 inmates were evacuated.

About 1 million Haitians are still homeless after January's devastating earthquake which killed up to 230,000 people.

 

The floods have come several weeks ahead of Haiti's traditional rainy season.

 

"The situation is grave... whole areas are completely flooded. People have climbed on to the roofs of their homes," local senator Francky Exius told AFP news agency.

 

Witnesses said some homes had collapsed and people were fleeing for safer areas. At least two people are reported missing in the floods. One report puts the death toll at 11.

 

Staff at the flooded hospital in Les Cayes moved patients to the safety of higher floors, reports say, while UN peacekeepers helped police to evacuate the jail.

 

Les Cayes lies on a peninsula 160km (100 miles) west of the capital Port-au-Prince. It was unaffected by the earthquake, but its 70,000 population has been swollen by survivors fleeing from earthquake-hit areas.

[nancyk58]

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/8542122.stm

 

- Page last updated at 19:02 - GMT, Sunday, 28 February 2010

 

CHILEAN QUAKE TOLL JUMPS TO 708

 

The DEATH TOLL from Chile's earthquake has more than doubled to 708 and is expected to rise further, President Michelle Bachelet has said.

 

Previously about 300 people were estimated to have been killed in Saturday's 8.8 magnitude quake - one of the most powerful recorded.

Massive damage is hampering rescue teams as they struggle to reach those still buried in the rubble.

However a Pacific-wide alert for a tsunami has been lifted.

Speaking to reporters on Sunday, Ms Bachelet said: "The catastrophe is enormous. The latest number I have is 708 dead."

She said 541 had died in Maule region, 64 in Biobio and 103 and other regions.

She added that the number of people missing was growing.

Earlier, President Bachelet said two million people had been affected by the earthquake. Many Chileans in affected areas have spent the first night since the earthquake outdoors, afraid to stay inside.

In the central city of Concepcion, in the worst-hit area, police used tear gas and water cannon against looters at a supermarket.

The mayor of the city said food was running out and the situation was getting out of control.

Officials said 25 people were rescued from a collapsed building in Concepcion, but dozens who were believed to have been trapped inside were still unaccounted for.

 

During Sunday's news conference, Ms Bachelet announced a series of emergency steps:

The Maule and Concepcion regions are being placed under special rules to speed up the delivery of aid.

The air force will fly supplies to both areas and the military will take a leading role in distributing them

In Maule and Biobio basic goods will be handed out free of charge. Distribution points are yet to be decided.

Electricity is a big concern and the government is working to guarantee distribution

Santiago's airport has reopened, with a total of five international flight due to arrive on Sunday. It had been closed because of damage to the terminal and control tower.

 

Tsunami reaches Japanese coast

A tsunami more than one metre (3 feet) high has hit Japan's northern Pacific coast, nearly 24 hours after the powerful earthquake in Chile.

Thousands of people were earlier told to leave coastal areas after predictions bigger waves could strike.

Other Pacific nations were hit by tsunamis, but the danger is now thought to have passed.

 

In Chile, the town of Talcahuano was badly damaged while five people were killed on the Juan Fernandez islands.

Fishing boats there were thrown out of the water in Talcahuano, and port facilities were damaged by a wave that US scientists said was 2.34m high.

The town lies about 115km (70 miles) south-west of the epicentre of Saturday's powerful earthquake.

Large waves struck Chile's Juan Fernandez island group, reaching halfway into one inhabited area and killing five people. Several more are missing.

Two aid ships are reported to be on their way.

 

Well prepared

Warning systems across the Pacific have improved since the 2004 Indonesia quake sparked a tsunami that killed nearly 250,000 people.

Nations and regions affected by the Pacific "Ring of Fire" all sounded alerts, trying to estimate the anticipated time of arrival of any tsunami following the earthquake, which struck on Saturday at 0634 GMT.

The first tsunami waves to reach Japan were reported to be just 10cm high, with a wave of 90cm following.

Officials later lifted a tsunami warning for Japan's coast, the first issued in more than 15 years.

The BBC's Roland Buerk in Tokyo says Japan has experienced many earthquakes of its own and was well prepared.

People in areas at risk were ordered to move to higher ground, train services running along the coast were suspended and steel gates across fishing harbours were shut.

In 1960 about 140 people were killed by a tsunami in Japan after a major earthquake in Chile.

Thousands of people also left coastal areas of the Philippines after warnings of a possible tsunami were spread by text message.

The Pacific Tsunami Warning Center had warned of "widespread damage" across the region following Saturday's quake, but later said waves were not as high as predicted.

A geophysicist at the centre, Gerard Fryer, told the BBC that the tsunami's impact was small because the earthquake occurred in shallow water.

The earthquake was "big enough to do significant damage, but not big enough to do anything large in the far field", he said.

 

'Ordinary stormy day'

Part of the Marquesas Islands in French Polynesia were hit by a 4m (13ft) wave, but no casualties were reported.

In Tahiti, the tsunami waves were smaller, causing little damage.

New Zealand's Chatham Islands were hit by a wave of 1.5m and areas along the main North and South Islands experienced small surges with no reports of casualties or serious damage.

The tsunami warning has been downgraded there but the emergency management department spokesman said there could still be waves of up to 3m.

Sirens were sounded in Hawaii to alert residents to the tsunami threat several hours before waves were expected.

The first waves hit about 2200 GMT on Saturday, after water began moving away from the shore at Hilo Bay on the Big Island before returning.

But correspondents say that, although 8ft (2.5m) waves had been predicted, the islands experienced nothing noticeably different from an ordinary stormy day.

Hawaiian officials later lifted the tsunami warning.

Despite Australian warnings of "possible dangerous waves, strong ocean currents and foreshore flooding" on the east coast, swimmers and surfers flocked to Sydney's Bondi beach.

 

FROM OTHER NEWS SITES

Financial Times: More than 700 killed in Chilean quake

Telegraph: Chile earthquake: death toll climbs to 400

Bangkok Post: Japan well prepared for tsunami

The Independent Rescuers battle to save Chile earthquake victims

 

irishtimes.com - Last Updated: Sunday, February 28, 2010, 18:06

DEATH TOLL IN CHILE QUAKE RISES TO MORE THAN 750

The death toll from yesterday's 8.8 magnitude earthquake in Chile continued to rise today, with officials estimating more than 750 casualties.

More than 350 people were killed in the coastal town of CONSTITUCION, which was also hit by a tsunami, state television quoted emergency officials as saying.

Television images from the fishing port of Constitucion, about 350 km (220 miles) southwest of the capital Santiago, showed houses destroyed by the quake and a tsunami, which had washed large fishing boats onto land and flipped over cars.

The death toll from Saturday's 8.8-magnitude quake already stood at 400 before news of the devastation in Constitucion.

Chileans fearful of aftershocks camped outside today, as officials struggled to grasp the scale of damage to transport, energy and housing infrastructure. Two million people in Chile have been affected by the earthquake, said president Michelle Bachelet, adding that it would take officials several days to evaluate the "enormous quantity of damage".

Around 100 people are trapped under the rubble of a building that collapsed in the city of CONCEPCION in south-central Chile, the mayor said today.

 

Tsunami waves killed at least four people on Chile's Juan Fernandez islands and caused serious damage to the port town of Talcahuano.

Tsunami waves of up to 1.5 metres (5 ft) hit far-flung Pacific regions from the Russian far east and Japan to New Zealand's Chatham Islands today in the wake of one of the world's most powerful tremors in a century.

 

Hundreds of thousands of residents in JAPAN, NEW ZEALAND, the PHILIPPINES and RUSSIA's Kamchatka were told to evacuate after the quake but there were no immediate reports of damage.

 

The Japan Meteorological Agency (JMA) put the country's highest tsunami so far at 1.2 metres in the port of Kuji, northeast Japan. Smaller waves hit a swathe of the country from the small island of Minamitori 1,950 km (1,200 miles) south of Tokyo to Hokkaido island in the north.

 

Japanese officials have ordered or advised some 570,000 households along the country's Pacific coast to evacuate and said it would be hours before evacuees could go home.

 

"The full-fledged tsunami waves are starting to arrive," University of Tokyo professor Yoshinobu Tsuji told NHK public TV. "This is not the last one," he said.

 

It was Japan's first major tsunami warning in 17 years and only the fourth since 1952, the Japan Meteorological Agency said.

"Carelessness could be the biggest enemy," prime minister Yukio Hatoyama told reporters.

 

Train services were halted in many areas along the Pacific coast and many highways were closed. Two nuclear plants in the area were operating normally and Japan's Nippon Oil Corp said its 145,000 barrel-per-day Sendai refinery was also functioning as usual.

 

Police cars and fire trucks patrolled coastal roads and fishing boats, seeking to avoid any tsunami, headed out to sea under gray skies, with snow flurries in some areas.

 

The area that could be hit hardest, where around 140 people died in a previous tsunami 50 years ago, has many small harbours that could concentrate the force of a tsunami.

 

"We experienced tsunami 50 years ago. But it sounded like it could be worse this time, so I was afraid," said 69-year old Fumiko Nakajima in a fishing town on the outskirts of Sendai. She said the evacuation of residents, many of whom are elderly, went smoothly due to frequent drills.

 

The tsunami warning covered the eastern seaboard of Japan, although for Tokyo Bay and many other areas the warnings were for waves of only around one metre (3 ft).

 

The first waves to hit New Zealand were reported at the remote Chatham Islands, around 800km (500 miles) east of New Zealand, with surges of up to 1.5 metres measured, the Civil Defence Ministry said.

 

A resident on one of the smaller islands in the group, Pitt, said the surges were continuing and getting bigger.

 

"The bay empties right out. It takes about a minute and a half and then it surges back in, in about the same amount of time," Bernadette Malinson told Radio New Zealand. "The surges have been getting bigger - at least 2 metres at present."

 

Authorities in Russia's far eastern Kamchatka region lifted a tsunami alert after a series of small waves appeared to cause no damage, a spokeswoman for the Emergencies Ministry said.

 

A tsunami hit beaches in eastern Australian but there were not initial reports of damage.

Australia issued a tsunami alert for most of its east coast and eastern parts of the island state of Tasmania, but authorities said there were no concerns about major inundation.

 

Hawaii dodged serious damage yesterday when a tsunami merely lapped ashore, although residents were warned to stay away from coastal areas because the ocean could remain unsettled for several more hours.

Reuters

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Updates of news on 28.02.10 in relation to Chile earthquake

 

 

CHILE WAS READY FOR QUAKE, HAITI WASN'T

 

02/28/2010 | 09:50 AM

 

PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti — The earthquake in Chile was far stronger than the one that struck Haiti last month — yet the death toll in this Caribbean nation is magnitudes higher.

 

The reasons are simple.

 

Chile is wealthier and infinitely better prepared, with strict building codes, robust emergency response and a long history of handling seismic catastrophes. No living Haitian had experienced a quake at home when the Jan. 12 disaster crumbled their poorly constructed buildings.

 

And Chile was relatively lucky this time.

 

Saturday's quake was centered offshore an estimated 21 miles (34 kilometers) underground in a relatively unpopulated area while Haiti's tectonic mayhem struck closer to the surface — about 8 miles (13 kilometers) — and right on the edge of Port-au-Prince, factors that increased its destructiveness.

 

"Earthquakes don't kill — they don't create damage — if there's nothing to damage," said Eric Calais, a Purdue University geophysicist studying the Haiti quake.

 

The U.S. Geological Survey says eight Haitian cities and towns — including this capital of 3 million — suffered "violent" to "extreme" shaking in last month's 7-magnitude quake, which Haiti's government estimates killed some 220,000 people. Chile's death toll was in the hundreds.

 

By contrast, no Chilean urban area suffered more than "severe" shaking — the third most serious level — Saturday in its 8.8-magnitude disaster, by USGS measure. The quake was centered 200 miles (325 kms) away from Chile's capital and largest city, Santiago.

 

In terms of energy released at the epicenter, the Chilean quake was 501 times stronger. But energy dissipates rather quickly as distances grow from epicenters — and the ground beneath Port-au-Prince is less stable by comparison and "shakes like jelly," says University of Miami geologist Tim Dixon.

 

Survivors of Haiti's quake described abject panic — much of it well-founded as buildings imploded around them. Many Haitians grabbed cement pillars only to watch them crumble in their hands. Haitians were not schooled in how to react — by sheltering under tables and door frames, and away from glass windows.

 

Chileans, on the other hand, have homes and offices built to ride out quakes, their steel skeletons designed to sway with seismic waves rather than resist them.

 

"When you look at the architecture in Chile you see buildings that have damage, but not the complete pancaking that you've got in Haiti," said Cameron Sinclair, executive director of Architecture for Humanity, a 10-year-old nonprofit that has helped people in 36 countries rebuild after disasters.

 

Sinclair said he has architect colleagues in Chile who have built thousands of low-income housing structures to be earthquake resistant.

 

In Haiti, by contrast, there is no building code.

 

Patrick Midy, a leading Haitian architect, said he knew of only three earthquake-resistant buildings in the Western Hemisphere's poorest country.

 

Sinclair's San Francisco-based organization received 400 requests for help the day after the Haiti quake but he said it had yet to receive a single request for help for Chile.

 

"On a per-capita basis, Chile has more world-renowned seismologists and earthquake engineers than anywhere else," said Brian E. Tucker, president of GeoHazards International, a nonprofit organization based in Palo Alto, California.

 

Their advice is heeded by the government in Latin America's wealthiest nation, getting built not just into architects' blueprints and building codes but also into government contingency planning.

 

"The fact that the president (Michelle Bachelet) was out giving minute-to-minute reports a few hours after the quake in the middle of the night gives you an indication of their disaster response," said Sinclair.

 

Most Haitians didn't know whether their president, Rene Preval, was alive or dead for at least a day after the quake. The National Palace and his residence — like most government buildings — had collapsed.

 

Haiti's TV, cell phone networks and radio stations were knocked off the air by the seismic jolt.

 

Col. Hugo Rodriguez, commander of the Chilean aviation unit attached to the U.N. peacekeeping force in Haiti, waited anxiously Saturday with his troops for word from loved ones at home.

 

He said he knew his family was OK and expressed confidence that Chile would ride out the disaster.

 

"We are organized and prepared to deal with a crisis, particularly a natural disaster," Rodriguez said. "Chile is a country where there are a lot of natural disasters." Calais, the geologist, noted that frequent seismic activity is as common to Chile as it is to the rest of the Andean ridge. Chile experienced the strongest earthquake on record in 1960, and Saturday's quake was the nation's third of over magnitude-8.7.

 

"It's quite likely that every person there has felt a major earthquake in their lifetime," he said, "whereas the last one to hit Port-au-Prince was 250 years ago." "So who remembers?" On Port-au-Prince's streets Saturday, many people had not heard of Chile's quake. More than half a million are homeless, most still lack electricity and are preoccupied about trying to get enough to eat.

 

Fanfan Bozot, a 32-year-old reggae singer having lunch with a friend, could only shake his head at his government's reliance on international relief to distribute food and water.

 

"Chile has a responsible government," he said, waving his hand in disgust. "Our government is incompetent."

— AP

 

 

CHILE ASSESSES DAMAGE FROM MAMMOTH EARTHQUAKE

 

02/28/2010 | 05:24 PM

 

TALCA, Chile — A weeping man strokes the hand of a dead woman in a collapsed cafe. Survivors huddle around bonfires in the rubble of their homes. Smashed cars lie beneath bridges torn asunder by one of history's strongest earthquakes.

 

Authorities in Chile put the official death toll from Saturday's 8.8-magnitude quake at 214, but said they believed the number would grow. They said 1.5 million Chileans were affected and 500,000 homes severely damaged by the mammoth temblor.

 

"We think the real [death] figure tops 300 and we believe this will continue to grow," said Carmen Fernandez, head of the National Emergency Agency.

 

President Michelle Bachelet, who leaves office on March 11, declared a "STATE OF CATASTROPHE" in central Chile. "It was a catastrophe of devastating consequences," she said.

 

Bachelet said the government had not asked for assistance from other countries. If it does, President Barack Obama said, the United States "will be there." Around the world, leaders echoed his sentiment.

 

As night fell Saturday, about a dozen men and children sat around a bonfire in the remains of their homes in Curico, a town 122 miles (196 kms) south of the capital, Santiago.

 

"We were sleeping when we felt the quake, very strongly. I got up and went out the door. When I looked back my bed was covered in rubble," said survivor Claudio Palma.

 

Fabian Miners, 22, was put in charge of tallying damages in Curico and surrounding villages. He said he had counted 90 deaths in the area, mainly people over 50 or 60 who could not get out of their falling adobe-walled homes in time.

 

Erika Vasquez, 28, said she and 14 of her relatives were sheltering under three small tarpaulins in the park in front of their collapsed home.

 

"They told us to go somewhere else, but all our things are here," said Vasquez, pointing at the rubble of what had been the family's home for 44 years.

 

The quake tore apart houses, bridges and highways, and Chileans near the epicenter were thrown from their beds by the force of the mega-quake, which was felt as far away as Sao Paulo in Brazil — 1,800 miles (2,900 kilometers) to the east.

 

The full extent of damage remained unclear as dozens of AFTERSHOCKS — one nearly as powerful as Haiti's devastating Jan. 12 earthquake — shuddered across the disaster-prone Andean nation.

 

The quake caused newly built apartment buildings to slump and fall. Power lines collapsed. Falling bridges tossed cars and trucks like toys.

 

In Talca, just 65 miles (105 kilometers) from the epicenter, people sleeping in bed suddenly felt like they were flying through airplane turbulence as their belongings cascaded down around them when the quake hit at 3:34 a.m.

 

A deafening roar rose from the convulsing earth as buildings groaned and clattered. The sound of screams mixed with the crash of plates and windows. Then the earth stilled and stunned survivors began streaming outside.

 

A journalist emerging into the darkened street scattered with downed power lines saw a man, some of his own bones apparently broken, weeping and caressing the hand of a woman who had died in a cafe. Two other victims lay dead a few feet (meters) away.

 

Also near the epicenter was CONCEPCION, one of the country's largest cities, where a 15-STORY BUILDING COLLAPSED, leaving a few floors intact.

 

In the capital Santiago, 200 miles (325 kilometers) to the northeast, the national Fine Arts Museum was badly damaged and an apartment building's two-story parking lot pancaked, smashing about 50 cars.

 

Santiago's airport was closed and its subway shut down. Chile's main seaport, in Valparaiso, was ordered closed while damage was assessed. Two oil refineries shut down. The state-run Codelco, the world's largest copper producer, halted work at two of its mines, but said it expected them to resume operations quickly.

 

The jolt set off a TSUNAMI that SWAMPED SAN JUAN BAUTISTA VILLAGE on ROBINSON CRUSOE ISLAND off Chile, killing at least five people and leaving 11 missing, said Guillermo de la Masa, head of the government emergency bureau for the Valparaiso region.

 

On the mainland, several huge waves inundated part of the major port city of Talcahuano, near hard-hit Concepcion. A large boat was swept more than a block inland.

 

The surge of water raced across the Pacific, setting off alarm sirens in Hawaii, Polynesia and Tonga, but the tsunami waves proved small and did little damage as they reached as far as Japan.

 

Robert Williams, a geophysicist at the US Geological Survey, said the CHILEAN QUAKE was hundreds of times MORE POWERFUL THAN HAITI's magnitude-7 QUAKE, though it was deeper and cost far fewer lives.

 

The largest earthquake ever recorded struck the same area of CHILE on MAY 22, 1960. The magnitude-9.5 QUAKE KILLED 1,655 people and made 2 MILLION HOMELESS. Saturday's quake matched a 1906 temblor off the Ecuadorean coast as the seventh-strongest ever recorded in the world. — AP

 

 

RESCUERS STRUGGLE TO SAVE LIVES AFTER CHILE QUAKE

 

02/28/2010 | 08:07 PM

 

CONCEPCION, Chile – Rescuers edged their way toward residents trapped in a toppled apartment block early Sunday and survivors huddled around bonfires in the rubble of their homes as the death toll in Chile continued to rise after one of the strongest earthquakes in history.

 

Authorities put the official death toll from Saturday's 8.8-magnitude QUAKE at 214, but said they believed the number would grow. They said 1.5 million Chileans were affected and 500,000 homes severely damaged by the mammoth temblor.

 

A tsunami caused by the quake that swept across the Pacific killed several people on a Chilean island but caused little damage in other countries. The tsunami warning was lifted a day after the earthquake.

 

President Michelle Bachelet, who leaves office March 11, declared a "state of catastrophe" in central Chile. "It was a catastrophe of devastating consequences," she said.

 

Police said MORE THAN 100 PEOPLE DIED IN CONCEPCION, the largest city near the epicenter with more than 200,000 people. The university was among the buildings that caught fire around the city as gas and power lines snapped. Many streets were littered with rubble from edifices, inmates escaped from a nearby prison and police warned that criminals had been looting stores.

 

The largest single damage involved a newly opened 11-story building that toppled backward, trapping an estimated 60 people inside apartments where the floors suddenly became vertical and the contents of every room slammed down onto rear walls.

 

"It fell at the moment the earthquake began," said 4th Lt. Juan Schulmeyer of Concepcion's 7th Firefighter Company, pointing to where the foundation collapsed. A full 24 hours later, only 16 people had been pulled out alive, and six bodies had been recovered.

 

Rescuers heard a woman call out at 11 p.m. Saturday from what seemed like the 6th floor, but hours later they were making slow progress in reaching her. Rescuers were working with two power saws and an electric hammer on a generator, but their supply of gas was running out and it was taking them a frustrating hour and a half to cut each hole through the concrete.

 

"It's very difficult working in the dark with AFTERSHOCKS, and inside it's complicated. The apartments are totally destroyed. You have to work with great caution," said Paulo Klein, who was leading a group of rescue specialists from Puerto Montt. They flew in on an air force plane with just the equipment they could carry. Heavy equipment was coming later along with 12 other rescuers.

 

The quake tore apart houses, bridges and highways, and Chileans near the epicenter were thrown from their beds by the force of the mega-quake, which was felt as far away as Sao Paulo in Brazil — 1,800 miles (2,900 kilometers) to the east.

 

The full extent of damage remained unclear as dozens of aftershocks — one nearly as powerful as Haiti's devastating Jan. 12 earthquake — shuddered across the disaster-prone Andean nation.

 

In the village of Reumen, a tractor trailer slammed into a dangling pedestrian overpass and 40 tons of concrete and steel crunched the truck, covering Chile's main highway with smashed grapes, tomatoes and cucumbers. The overpass was one of four that reporters saw that had been toppled along the highway.

 

Truck driver Jaime Musso, 53, thought his truck was being buffeted by strong winds and by the time he saw the overpass hanging down over Highway 5 there was no chance of stopping, so he aimed for the spot where he thought he would cause the least damage and brought down the overpass onto his truck. He said he survived "by millimeters."

 

As night fell Saturday, about a dozen men and children sat around a bonfire in the remains of their homes in Curico, a town 122 miles (196 kilometers) south of the capital, Santiago.

 

"We were sleeping when we felt the quake, very strongly. I got up and went out the door. When I looked back my bed was covered in rubble," said survivor Claudio Palma.

 

In the capital Santiago, 200 miles (325 kilometers) to the northeast of the epicenter, the national Fine Arts Museum was badly damaged and an apartment building's two-story parking lot pancaked, smashing about 50 cars.

 

Santiago's airport was closed and its subway shut down. Chile's main seaport, in Valparaiso, was ordered closed while damage was assessed. Two oil refineries shut down. The state-run Codelco, the world's largest copper producer, halted work at two of its mines, but said it expected them to resume operations quickly.

 

The jolt set off a tsunami that swamped San Juan Bautista village on Robinson Crusoe Island off Chile, killing at least five people and leaving 11 missing, said Guillermo de la Masa, head of the government emergency bureau for the Valparaiso region.

 

On the mainland, several huge waves inundated part of the major port city of Talcahuano, near hard-hit Concepcion. A large boat was swept more than a block inland.

 

The surge of water raced across the Pacific, setting off alarm sirens in Hawaii, Polynesia and Tonga, but the tsunami waves proved small and did little damage as they reached as far as Japan.

 

Robert Williams, a geophysicist at the U.S. Geological Survey, said the Chilean quake was hundreds of times more powerful than Haiti's magnitude-7 quake, though it was deeper and cost far fewer lives.

 

The largest earthquake ever recorded struck the same area of Chile on May 22, 1960. The magnitude-9.5 quake killed 1,655 people and made 2 million homeless. Saturday's quake matched a 1906 temblor off the Ecuadorean coast as the seventh-strongest ever recorded in the world.

– AP

[nancyk58]

UPDATES OF THE SITUATION IN CHILE ON 1 MARCH 2010

 

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/8542789.stm

 

 

SHAKEN SANTIAGO COUNTS ITSELF LUCKY

 

(page last updated at 07:55 GMT, Sunday, 28 February 2010)

 

By Gideon Long, BBC News, Santiago

 

Although the quake struck at 3.30 in the morning, I was still awake, enjoying a party with friends in a beach house some 200km (125 miles) north-west of the capital, Santiago.

 

What struck me was not so much the intensity of the quake but its duration.

It started as an almost indiscernible trembling of the glasses and the furniture in the room, and it grew and grew for what seemed like an eternity.

 

The lights went out and we realised this was no minor tremor.

 

We ran out of the house, heading for open space.

 

Every car alarm in the street was sounding; the trees were quivering and I remember looking up and seeing the telephone lines swaying back and forth as if blown by a gale force wind.

 

It felt like we were at the epicentre, and it was only hours later that we found out that the real eye of the storm was around 500km further south, close to Chile's second city, Concepcion.

 

If we felt it this strongly here, what must it have felt like at the epicentre, I wondered.

 

SILENT AND DARK

 

Later, I made it back from the coast to Santiago, through Chile's main port of Valparaiso.

 

There, piles of rubble littered the streets and people had largely deserted the lower reaches of the city, fearing a tsunami.

 

In Santiago itself, whole areas of the city were still in darkness; tower blocks, usually ablaze with light after dusk, were spookily dark, with no electricity and no running water.

 

There were cars on the streets, but not many, and their owners were driving cautiously through a city suddenly deprived of its traffic lights.

 

I drove past my local church - largely intact, but missing its dome, which had crashed to the ground when the quake struck.

 

I reached my apartment building, silent and dark.

 

The door was hanging off its hinges, there were cracks in the walls, and flakes of plaster littered the floor. No light, no running water - a pattern repeated across this city of six million people.

 

But here in Santiago we can count ourselves lucky. Television images from the cities of CONCEPCION, CONSTITUTION, TALCAHUANO and CURICÓ, close to epicentre, show just how devastating this quake has been.

 

Highways have been sliced in two and road bridges have collapsed.

It's still not clear how many people have died or what the extent of the damage is.

 

President Michelle Bachelet has spoken to the nation and confirmed that two million people - an eighth of the population - have been affected by the quake which, with a magnitude of 8.8, was one of the strongest recorded.

 

More than 300 have died and many more are missing.

 

Fortunately, the Chileans are good at dealing with earthquakes. They have to be: they have a long history of them.

 

Help has been reaching the stricken areas of the south and Santiago is just about functioning again.

 

But even so, it will be weeks, if not months, before the country returns to anything like normality, and for some areas, it will take much, much longer than that.

 

 

CHILE TROOPS TACKLE QUAKE LOOTERS

 

The Chilean military is attempting to restore order in the country's second city, Concepcion, amid looting after Saturday's devastating earthquake.

 

Troops have fired tear gas at looters attempting to flee with food and other goods from wrecked stores, as a major rescue effort is under way in the city.

The death toll of 708 from the 8.8-magnitude quake is expected to rise.

The United Nations has said it will rush aid deliveries to Chile after the government asked for help.

 

UN spokeswoman Elisabeth Byrs said Chile had requested field hospitals with surgery facilities, mobile bridges, communications equipment, kitchens, and disaster assessment and co-ordination teams.

 

In COASTAL TOWNS AND VILLAGES HIT BY GIANT WAVES after the earthquake, the scale of destruction is becoming clear.

 

AFP news agency quotes state television as saying more than 300 bodies were found in the fishing village of Constitucion alone.

 

In the port of Talcahuano, more than 20 boats were swept ashore and dumped in the streets by the waves.

 

Defence Minister Francisco Vidal has admitted the country's navy made a mistake by not immediately issuing a tsunami warning after the earthquake, a move that could have helped coastal residents flee to higher ground sooner.

 

But he added an alarm sounded by port captains had saved hundreds if not thousands of lives.

 

'SOCIAL TENSION'

 

Many of Concepcion's 500,000 inhabitants are short of food and have seen their water and electricity supplies cut off.

 

The army was called in to help the police force deal with looters, some of whom filled shopping trolleys full of groceries while others made off with plasma TVs and other electrical appliances.

 

The government said an overnight curfew was imposed in some of the worst-hit areas. It said it was largely observed, despite a number of strong aftershocks that sent frightened residents running out into the streets.

 

Meanwhile, rescuers with heat detectors are hunting for dozens of people believed to be trapped in an apartment block toppled by the quake.

 

The city's Mayor, Jacqueline van Rysselberghe, has warned there is the potential for severe "social tension."

 

She said: "We need food for the population. We are without supplies, and if we don't resolve that we are going to have serious security problems."

 

Regional military commander Guillermo Ramirez issued a warning to would-be looters.

 

"I would advise criminals not to mess with the armed forces. Our response will be severe, but within the context of the law," he said.

 

'GIANT EFFORT'

 

About two million Chileans are believed to have been affected by Saturday's earthquake, the seventh most powerful on record and the worst disaster to befall Chile in 50 years.

 

President Michelle Bachelet, due to hand power to President-elect Sebastian Pinera on 11 March, said the air force was to begin flying in food and vital aid to badly-hit areas, some of which have been cut off by the quake.

 

"We face a catastrophe of such unthinkable magnitude that it will require a giant effort," she said.

 

Chile did not initially request foreign assistance, but Ms Bachelet has subsequently said some offers of aid would be accepted.

 

She said Chile needed field hospitals, temporary bridges, water purification plants, damage assessment experts and rescuers to relieve those already working to find survivors.

 

EMERGENCY AID

 

The epicentre of the quake was 115km (70 miles) north-east of Concepcion and 325km (202 miles) south-west of the capital Santiago.

 

About 1.5 million homes in Chile have been damaged. Most of the collapsed buildings were of older design - including many historic structures.

 

About 90% of the historic centre of the town of CURICÓ was destroyed. Many roads and bridges across the affected area were damaged or destroyed.

 

One US risk assessor, Eqecat, has put the cost of repairing the damage at between $15bn and $30bn (£9.8bn-£19.6bn) or 10-20% of gross domestic product.

 

US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton would visit Santiago on Tuesday and meet Ms Bachelet and Mr Pinera, officials said.

 

The European Union has pledged 3m euros ($4m; £2.7m) in emergency aid for Chile. Japan said it was providing an emergency grant of $3m, as well as sending tents, generators, water cleaners and other emergency gear, while China has pledged $1m.

 

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/8541276.stm

 

CHILE QUAKE LATEST:

 

Official death toll rises from 300 to more than 700

 

Tens of thousands forced to live outdoors because of damaged homes

 

Police in CONCEPCION move to stop looters stealing from shops

 

Survivors rescued from collapsed Concepcion building, but dozens more

unaccounted for

 

Limited services resume on Santiago metro and international airport

 

Pacific-wide tsunami alert lifted

 

 

CHILE PRESIDENT MICHELLE BACHELET STEPS UP QUAKE RESCUE

 

(page last updated at 09:16 GMT, Monday, 1 March 2010)

 

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/8542289.stm

 

Chilean President Michelle Bachelet has announced EMERGENCY MEASURES to deal with the destruction caused by Saturday's massive earthquake.

 

The 8.8 magnitude quake - one of the most powerful recorded - devastated central parts of the country, killing more than 700 people.

 

Troops are being deployed to help with rescue efforts and prevent looting.

 

A curfew is in force in some areas. Basic supplies are to be distributed as rescuers reach worst-hit areas.

 

We face a catastrophe of such unthinkable magnitude that it will require a giant effort," Ms Bachelet told reporters on Sunday in the capital, Santiago.

 

The curfew, which began at 2100 local time (2400 GMT), applies in the region of Maule - where more than 541 are confirmed dead - and in Concepcion, Chile's second city.

 

Both areas are being placed under special rules to speed up the delivery of aid.

 

The army has been sent to support police to prevent unrest in Concepcion, south of Santiago.

 

The mayor has said food is running out and the situation in the city is getting out of control. Supermarkets and chemists have been looted and thousands of people remain homeless.

 

Meanwhile, the Pacific Tsunami Warning Center has lifted its Pacific-wide alert, after fears of high waves failed to materialise in many countries.

 

But Chile itself saw waves inundate coastal towns. Defence Minister Francisco Vidal said the country's navy had made a mistake by not immediately issuing a tsunami warning after the earthquake, a move that could have helped coastal residents flee to higher ground sooner.

 

He added that an alarm sounded by port captains had saved hundreds if not thousands of lives.

 

SWEPT ASHORE

 

Meanwhile rescue teams are still trying to reach dozens of people believed to be trapped in a collapsed block of flats in Concepcion.

 

Many Chileans are spending a second night outdoors, afraid to stay in damaged homes.

 

Reports say 350 bodies were found in the devastated fishing village of Constitucion - which was hit by both the quake and the tsunami it set off.

 

In the port of Talcahuano more than 20 boats were swept ashore and dumped in the streets by the waves.

 

The emergency measures announced by Ms Bachelet also include:

 

• Air force flights to deliver supplies to affected areas

 

• Free distribution of basic goods in Maule and Biobio regions - distribution points are yet to be decided

• Efforts to guarantee electricity distribution, as many areas remain without power

 

Officials say public transport services are slowly returning to normal. One metro line in Santiago is operating. Roads are passable, although with diversions.

 

The airport in Santiago has reopened. It had been closed because of damage to the terminal and control tower.

 

AID OFFERED

 

The epicentre of the quake was 115km (70 miles) north-east of Concepcion and 325km south-west of Santiago.

 

About 1.5 million homes have been damaged. Most of the collapsed buildings were of older design - including many historic structures.

 

About 90% of the historic centre of the town of Curico was destroyed. Many roads and bridges across the affected area were damaged or destroyed.

 

One US risk assessor, Eqecat, put the cost of the damage at between $15bn and $30bn (£9.8bn-£19.6bn) or 10-20% of gross domestic product.

 

Responsibility for reconstruction will soon pass to President-elect Sebastian Pinera, who takes office in two weeks.

 

"It's going to be a very big task and we're going to need resources," he said.

Chile did not initially request foreign assistance, but Ms Bachelet later said some offers of aid would be accepted.

 

She said Chile needed field hospitals, temporary bridges, water purification plants, damage assessment experts and rescuers to relieve those already working to find survivors.

 

 

JAPAN LIFTS ALL TSUNAMI WARNINGS AFTER CHILE QUAKE

 

(page last updated at 02:34 GMT, Monday, 1 March 2010)

 

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/8540742.stm

 

Japan has lifted all tsunami alerts throughout the country, almost two days after a powerful earthquake hit Chile.

 

A tsunami more than one metre (3ft) high hit the country's northern Pacific coast on Sunday, although bigger waves were expected.

 

Other Pacific nations were hit by tsunamis but no major damage or casualties were reported.

 

In Chile itself, however, areas affected by both the quake and the resulting tsunami saw hundreds dead.

 

In the fishing village of Concepcion, 350 bodies were found and in the port of Talcahuano more than 20 boats were swept ashore and dumped in the streets by the waves.

 

Large waves struck Chile's Juan Fernandez island group, reaching halfway into one inhabited area and killing five people. Several more are missing.

 

WELL PREPARED

 

Warning systems across the Pacific have improved since the 2004 Indonesia quake sparked a tsunami that killed nearly 250,000 people.

 

Nations and regions affected by the Pacific "Ring of Fire" all sounded alerts, trying to estimate the anticipated time of arrival of any tsunami following the earthquake, which struck on Saturday at 0634 GMT.

 

The first tsunami waves to reach Japan were reported to be just 10cm (4in) high, with a wave of 90cm (35.5in) following.

 

The BBC's Roland Buerk in Tokyo says Japan has experienced many earthquakes of its own and was well prepared.

 

People in areas at risk were ordered to move to higher ground, train services running along the coast were suspended and steel gates across fishing harbours were shut.

 

In 1960 about 140 people were killed by a tsunami in Japan after a major earthquake in Chile.

 

Thousands of people also left coastal areas of the Philippines after warnings of a possible tsunami were spread by text message.

 

The Pacific Tsunami Warning Center had warned of "widespread damage" across the region following Saturday's quake, but later said waves were not as high as predicted.

 

A geophysicist at the centre, Gerard Fryer, told the BBC that the tsunami's impact was small because the earthquake occurred in shallow water.

 

The earthquake was "big enough to do significant damage, but not big enough to do anything large in the far field", he said.

 

'ORDINARY STORMY DAY'

 

Part of the Marquesas Islands in French Polynesia were hit by a 4m (13ft) wave, but no casualties were reported.

 

In Tahiti, the tsunami waves were smaller, causing little damage.

 

New Zealand's Chatham Islands were hit by a wave of 1.5m (5ft) and areas along the main North and South Islands experienced small surges with no reports of casualties or serious damage.

 

Sirens were sounded in Hawaii to alert residents to the tsunami threat several hours before waves were expected.

 

The first waves hit about 2200 GMT on Saturday, after water began moving away from the shore at Hilo Bay on the Big Island before returning.

 

But correspondents say that, although 8ft (2.5m) waves had been predicted, the islands experienced nothing noticeably different from an ordinary stormy day.

Hawaiian officials later lifted the tsunami warning.

 

Despite Australian warnings of "possible dangerous waves, strong ocean currents and foreshore flooding" on the east coast, swimmers and surfers flocked to Sydney's Bondi beach.

[nancyk58]

UPDATES OF THE SITUATION IN CHILE ON 1 MARCH 2010, part II (evening)

 

CHILE TROOPS TACKLE EARTHQUAKE LOOTERS

 

Page last updated at 17:01 GMT, Monday, 1 March 2010

(the entire article was posted earlier today)

 

The Chilean military is attempting to restore order in the country's second city, CONCEPCION, amid looting after Saturday's devastating earthquake.

 

One man was shot and killed and some 160 arrested as troops tried to stop the looting of food and other goods during an overnight curfew.

 

The death toll of 708 from the 8.8-magnitude quake is expected to rise.

 

The United Nations has said it will rush aid deliveries to Chile after the government asked for help.

 

UN spokeswoman Elisabeth Byrs said Chile had requested field hospitals with surgery facilities, mobile bridges, communications equipment, kitchens, and disaster assessment and co-ordination teams.

 

'SOCIAL TENSION'

 

Many of Concepcion's 500,000 inhabitants are short of food and have seen their water and electricity supplies cut off.

 

The army was called in to help the police force deal with looters, some of whom filled shopping trolleys full of groceries while others made off with plasma TVs and other electrical appliances.

 

The government said an overnight curfew was imposed in some of the worst-hit areas. It said it was largely observed, despite a number of STRONG AFTERSHOCKS that sent frightened residents running out into the streets.

 

At least 160 people were arrested in CONCEPCION and a 22-year-old man was killed amid disturbances, police said.

 

 

QUAKE SURVIVOR TELLS OF CHAOS AND DESPAIR IN CONCEPCION

 

Page last updated at 16:31 GMT, Monday, 1 March 2010

 

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/8543338.stm

 

Ricardo Leon was at his grandmother's house in Concepcion when a huge earthquake struck early on Saturday.

 

CONCEPCION is Chile's second largest city and is in the worst-hit area.

 

When the earthquake struck I woke up, ran to the door and found my grandmother standing in the hall. We knew what to do: get under a doorframe and wait - but this quake felt like it lasted for hours.

 

My grandmother's house has two storeys and is about 50 years old, but apart from a cracked wall, it withstood the tremors well.

 

During the quake the power was cut, so when it was finally over we went out into the dark street, lit only by the full moon.

 

The phones and the gas supply were also off. The water supply lasted a few hours longer.

 

People were gathering in the street, tuning into their car radios for local news.

With each AFTERSHOCK - and there were more than 90 over the next few hours - we felt everything was going to start again.

 

HOSPITAL SHORTAGES

 

An hour after the quake my sister - who also lives in Concepcion - rang to tell me that she and my other sister were OK.

 

Later that morning hospital staff asked for water because their supply was cut off. The A and E department was flooded so they were treating emergencies in the car park.

 

The sound of ambulances, police cars and firemen did not stop all day.

 

I saw some of the city when I went with my sister's boyfriend to pick up some things from his flat.

 

Most of the old houses were flattened, more shocking was all the new buildings with cracked walls and tilting floors.

 

One office building more than 20 storeys high was listing to one side, and another building, less than a year old, was completely flattened.

 

I learned later that an old classmate of mine lived there, I still don't know what's happened to him.

 

I managed to speak to the mother of my daughter who lives in Talcahuano, 15 minutes from Concepcion - they were OK.

 

Some debris fell on my baby's crib and broke it in half. Fortunately she was sleeping with her mum at that moment.

 

We spent the day trying to get hold of friends and family. We heard that prisoners had escaped from the jail, and started learning of the hundreds of people who had died.

 

On Sunday morning the looting began and the city became dangerous, so we decided to go to our parents in Los Angeles, a two-hour drive away.

 

The problem was finding fuel. Petrol stations had no electricity so couldn't pump. Some of them had been attacked by the mob, so the owners refused to use the emergency systems to provide fuel.

 

The few petrol stations that were operating were giving priority to emergency vehicles. In a city called Lota - 50 km away from Concepcion - an angry mob had burned down a petrol station when they were denied fuel.

 

We managed to fill up our tanks because my sister's boyfriend works in the city council.

 

In the petrol station we heard traumatic stories from policemen who had been in a gun battle the previous night trying to control the mob.

 

We also spoke to a friend who knows the owner of a construction company. He is in despair over one of his apartment blocks which collapsed. He can't understand what went wrong and feels suicidal about the people who were inside.

 

As we were leaving the city we saw people queuing for water, supplies and fuel. We also saw people looting stores and supermarkets,/COLOR] walking away with TV sets and refrigerators.

 

The roads were OK, apart from a few cracks. Now, on Monday, Los Angeles is getting back to normal, but Concepcion is a different story.

[nancyk58]

News in the Philippines on 2.3.10 - about Mayon Volcano and 6.1 quake

 

UPDATE OF THE SITUATION IN THE PHILIPPINES ON 2 MARCH 2010

 

ARROYO PAUSES IN HER SPEECH AS MAGNITUDE-6.1 QUAKE JOLTS CAGAYAN

 

(03/02/2010 | 12:52 PM - GMA News.TV)

 

President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo was in the middle of her speech in Cagayan when the earth suddenly shook Tuesday morning.

 

She immediately stiffened, then paused in her speech, which dealt with the government's agriculture projects in the said northern Luzon province, according to radio dzMM.

 

What Mrs. Arroyo felt beneath her feet was a magnitude-6.1 earthquake that struck the area at 10:51 a.m., according to the government-run Philippine Institute of Volcanology and Seismology (Phivolcs).

 

The tremor's epicenter was traced some 130 kilometers north of Cagayan province's Tuguegarao City, Phivolcs said.

 

It was the third significant quake of tectonic origin that hit the Philippines since the magnitude-8.8 tremor shook Chile last February 27.

 

A magnitude-5.1 quake rocked parts of Batanes in extreme northern Luzon shortly after midnight Sunday. On Monday, a magnitude-5.0 tremor jolted parts of Davao Oriental province.

 

Tuesday’s earthquake was felt at Intensity V in Cagayan's Sta. Ana and Aparri towns; at Intensity IV in Vigan, Ilocos Sur; Intensity III in Laoag and Pasuqin, Ilocos Norte, Palanan in Isabela, and Tuguegarao City; Intenisty II in Albano, Isabela; and Intensity I at the Manila Ocean Park in Manila.

 

Phivolcs director Renato Solidum assured the public that the seismic disturbance would not pose any danger to life and properties, let alone trigger a tsunami in the seas.

 

"It's not that strong. Even with a magnitude-7 quake, only small tsunamis are created," Solidum told radio dzBB in an interview on Tuesday.

 

Gov. Alvaro Antonio said the earthquake did not wreak havoc in the province and the locals did not even panic. He said he was attending a program when the quake struck.

 

"The quake had no adverse effect. It was only mild. It was only felt for 15 seconds," Antonio told dzBB in a separate interview on Tuesday.

 

"I was at a program a while ago, the stadium was jam-packed and nobody panicked," he said.

 

- MARK D. MERUEÑAS/ARCS, RJAB Jr., GMANews.TV

 

 

 

MAYON ALERT LEVEL DOWNGRADED TO 1

 

(03/02/2010 | 06:17 PM - GMA News.TV)

 

State volcanologists on Tuesday morning lowered the alert level of Mayon Volcano from two to one.

 

In an advisory posted on its Web site, the Philippine Institute of Volcanology and Seismology (Phivolcs) explained that alert level one meant that eruption was no longer imminent.

 

The six-kilometer radius danger zone, however, will remain off limits to public due to the continuing threat from sudden small explosions and rock falls.

 

"Active river channels and those areas perennially identified as lahar prone in the southeast sector should also be avoided especially during bad weather conditions or when there is heavy and prolonged rainfall," the advisory read.

 

According to Phivolcs, the number of Mayon's volcanic earthquakes is already within the normal level of zero to four quakes a day.

 

Volcanic tremors associated with magma movement within have likewise become "scarce and sometimes not recorded at all," it added.

 

Phivolcs said that while the crater glow of the Mayon Volcano remained at intensity II, it does not indicate any re-intensification. "Steam emission was most of the time weak and passively rising from the summit crater," the advisory read.

 

At the same time, Mayon also showed a deflated volcano edifice which indicates the absence of fresh magma supply. Its sulfur dioxide emission rate since January 13 up to March has consistently ranged from 110 to 2,021 tonnes which is consistent with its post eruptive gas emission rate.

 

- Aie Balagtas See/KBK, GMANews.TV

[nancyk58]

News on 2 March 2010 in relation to Chile

 

BBC World News: More than 100 people are killed in a LANDSLIDE in eastern UGANDA, a minister tells the BBC, with many children feared dead.

 

 

UPDATES OF THE SITUATION IN CHILE ON 1 MARCH 2010, Part I

 

From Filipino GMA News.TV

 

MAN, DAUGHTER FALL 13 FLOORS IN CHILE QUAKE

 

(Michael Warren, Associated Press Writer - 03/01/2010 | 08:45 PM)

 

CONCEPCION, Chile — When their 13th-floor apartment began to shake, Alberto Rozas pulled his 7-year-old daughter into the bathroom doorway and waited for it to stop. Instead, they fell.

 

Plummeting as their brand-new apartment building toppled like a felled tree, they hugged each other all the way down.

 

Rozas had no idea which way was up until he looked through his apartment's shattered window and spotted light — "the light of the full moon."

 

Rozas and his daughter, Fernanda, clambered up and to safety with nothing more than a few cuts, scrapes and bruises.

 

"The earthquake and the fall were one single, horrible thing," Rozas told The Associated Press on Sunday. "I held onto her and she never let me go."

 

Rozas' neighbors who lived on the other side of the hall found themselves trapped beneath the structure, while rescuers painstakingly used electric saws and a generator-powered hammer to cut into the concrete.

 

"We don't have any listening devices or cameras," said Ian Argo, a firefighter commander.

 

As of Sunday, 23 people had been pulled alive from the 15-story Rio Alta building and seven bodies had been removed. An estimated 60 people remained trapped inside.

 

Socovil, the company that opened the concrete-and-glass structure last June, issued a statement saying it had complied with all building codes. But many residents were angry.

 

"The construction was obviously poor," Rozas said.

 

Abel Torres, 25, had a view of the Bio Bio River from his sixth-floor apartment. He had just gotten home from his job at a nightclub when the quake hit at 3:34 a.m.

 

"My TV fell on top of me and suddenly I saw stars shooting across my window," he said.

 

Torres and his roommate stacked furniture to reach that window — now a skylight — and escaped without clothes, coated in dust.

 

On the second floor, Maribel Alarcon and her husband Gunther rushed to comfort their 2-year-old son Oliver when he started crying moments before the temblor.

 

Their concern was their salvation: Oliver's bedroom was the only place spared in their apartment.

 

"We prayed a lot," Alarcon said. "And if God let us survive, that was because someone was going to rescue us."

 

Much higher in the building, Rozas was sleeping alongside his daughter when the shaking began.

 

"There was dust, noise, everything falling," he said. "We went to the bathroom doorway. Then there was the fall. Finally it stopped."

 

After they climbed out of the wreckage, Rozas took Fernanda to her mother's house, then returned to help firefighters understand the layout of the toppled building.

 

He retrieved medicine and clothes for Fernanda. And his own guitar. —AP

 

 

UPDATES OF THE SITUATION IN CHILE ON 2 MARCH 2010

 

TSUNAMI SWEEPS AWAY TOWNS ON CHILEAN COAST

 

(03/02/2010 | 01:52 PM - GMA News.TV)

 

TALCAHUANO, Chile – When the shaking stopped, Marioli Gatica and her extended family huddled in a circle on the floor of their seaside wooden home in this gritty port town, listening to the radio by a lantern's light.

 

They heard FIREFIGHTERS URGING TALCAHUANO's CITIZENS to STAY CALM and STAY INSIDE. They heard NOTHING OF A TSUNAMI — UNTIL IT SLAMMED INTO THEIR HOUSE with an unearthly roar about an hour after Saturday's magnitude 8.8 quake.

 

GATICA's HOUSE EXPLODED WITH WATER. She and her family were swept below the surface, swirling amid loose ship containers and other massive debris that smashed buildings into oblivion all around them.

 

"We were sitting there one moment and the next I looked up into the water and saw cables and furniture floating," Gatica said.

 

She clung to her 11-year-old daughter, Ninoska Elgueta, but the rush of water ripped the girl from her hands. Then the wave retreated as suddenly as it came.

 

Two of the giant containers crushed Gatica's home. A third landed seaward of where she floated, preventing the retreating tsunami from dragging her and other relatives away.

 

Soon Ninoska was back in her mother's arms — she had grabbed a tree branch to avoid being swept away and climbed down as soon as the sea receded.

 

Gatica's son, husband and 76-year-old father were OK as well, as were her sister and her family. The only relative missing was her 76-year-old mother, Nery Valdebenito, Gatica said as she waited in a hundreds-long line outside a school to report her losses.

 

"I think my mother is trapped beneath" the house, Gatica said.

 

As she spoke, firefighters with search dogs were examining the ruins of her home blocks away. Minutes later, the group leader drew his finger across his neck: No one alive under the house.

 

Such horrors abound along the devastated beach communities of Chile's south-central coast, which suffered the double tragedy Saturday of the earthquake and the tsunami it caused.

 

Of the quake's 723 VICTIMS, MOST were IN the wine-growing MAULE REGION that includes TALCAHUANO, now a mud-caked, ravaged town of 180,000 just north of Concepcion.

 

Close to 80 percent of TALCAHUANO's RESIDENTS are HOMELESS, with 10,000 HOMES UNINHABITABLE and HUNDREDS MORE DESTROYED, said Mayor Gaston Saavedra.

 

"The port is destroyed. The streets, collapsed. City buildings, destroyed," Saavedra said.

 

In CONCEPCION, the biggest city near the epicenter, rescuers heard the knocking of victims trapped inside a TOPPLED 70-UNIT APARTMENT BUILDING Monday and were drilling through thick concrete to reach them, said fire Commander Juan Carlos Subercaseux. By late Monday, FIREFIGHTERS HAD PULLED 25 SURVIVORS and NINE BODIES from the structure.

 

CHILE's DEFENSE MINISTER has said the NAVY made a MISTAKE by not immediately activating a tsunami warning. He said PORT CAPTAINS who did CALL WARNINGS IN SEVERAL COASTAL TOWNS SAVED HUNDREDS OF LIVES.

 

The waves came too quickly for a group of 40 retirees vacationing at a seaside campground in the village of Pelluhue. They had piled into a bus that was swept out to sea, along with trucks and houses, when the tsunami surged 200 meters (yards) into the summer resort town.

 

As of Monday, firefighters said, five of the retirees' bodies had been recovered. At least 30 remained missing.

 

Most residents in Pelluhue, where 300 homes were destroyed, were aware of the tsunami threat. Street signs point to the nearest tsunami evacuation route.

 

"We ran through the highest part of town, yelling, 'Get out of your homes!'" said Claudio Escalona, 43, who fled his home near the campground with his wife and daughters, ages 4 and 6. "About 20 minutes later came three waves, two of them huge, about 6 meters (18 feet) each, and a third even bigger. That one went into everything."

 

"You could hear the screams of children, women, everyone," Escalona said. "There were the screams, and then a tremendous silence."

 

In the village of Dichato, teenagers drinking on the beach were the first to shout the warning when they saw a horseshoe-shaped bay empty about an hour after the quake. They ran through the streets, screaming. Police joined them, using megaphones.

 

The water rose steadily, surging above the second floors of homes and lifting them off their foundations. Cars were stacked three high in the streets. Miles inland along a river valley, cows munched Monday next to marooned boats, refrigerators, sofas and other debris.

 

"THE MARITIME RADIO SAID THERE WOULDN'T BE A TSUNAMI," said survivor Rogilio Reyes, who was tipped off by the teenagers.

 

Dichato Mayor Eduardo Aguilera said 49 PEOPLE WERE MISSING and 800 HOMES were DESTROYED. Some people fled to high ground, only to return too early and get caught by the tsunami, he said. Fourteen bodies were found by Monday. The only aid: A fire department water truck.

 

The World Health Organization (WHO) said it expected the death toll to rise as communications improve. For survivors, it said access to health services will be a major challenge and noted that indigenous people living in adobe homes were most at risk.

 

In Geneva, U.N. humanitarian spokeswoman Elisabeth Byrs said Chile was seeking temporary bridges, field hospitals, satellite phones, electric generators, damage assessment teams, water purification systems, field kitchens and dialysis centers.

 

U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton said she was bringing 20 satellite phones as a first piece of a much larger U.S. aid package.

 

ARGENTINA said it was sending six aircraft loaded with a field hospital, 55 doctors and water treatment plants.

 

BRAZIL said it was sending a field hospital and rescue teams. Brazil's president, Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, visited the capital of Santiago to express his solidarity.

 

Chilean President Michelle Bachelet said authorities were flying 320 tons of food, water and other basics into the quake zone.

 

Assessments of damage to Chile's economy were in the early stage. The copper industry was spared, while Concha y Toro, Chile's biggest winemaker, said Monday that the quake has forced it to halt production for at least a week while it assesses damage.

 

SECURITY was a major concern in CONCEPCION and other hard-hit towns. Most markets in Concepcion were ransacked by LOOTERS and people desperate for food, water, toilet paper, gasoline and other essentials Sunday, prompting authorities to send TROOPS and IMPOSE AN OVERNIGHT CURFEW in the city. The interior ministry extended the Concepcion curfew to run from 8 p.m. Monday to noon Tuesday.

 

When a small convoy of armored vehicles drove along a downtown street, bystanders applauded, shouting: "Finally! Finally!"

 

Throughout Talcahuano, stick-wielding residents barricaded streets with tires and rubble to protect their homes in the absence of law enforcement.

 

Downtown, eight suspected looters kneeled outside a pharmacy, their hands on their heads, as a police officer taunted them.

 

"Are you praying?" he shouted. "I don't hear you. Pray." -- AP

[nancyk58]

NEWS IN RELATION TO THE EARTHQUAKE AND TSUNAMI IN CHILE, PART II

 

TSUNAMI SWEEPS AWAY FLEEING BUS FULL OF RETIREES IN CHILE

 

(03/02/2010 | 07:59 PM - GMA News.TV)

 

PELLUHUE, Chile – The 40 retirees enjoying summer vacation at a seaside campground nestled under pine trees knew they had to move fast after Chile's powerful earthquake struck.

 

They didn't make it. The tsunami came in three waves, surging 200 meters (yards) into this Pacific Ocean resort town and dragging away the bus they'd piled into, hoping to get to high ground. Most of those inside were tourists, and only five of their bodies had been found by Monday, firefighters and witnesses said.

 

Pelluhue's horror underscored the destruction wrought by Saturday's pre-dawn 8.8-magnitude quake and the tsunami that ravaged communities along Chile's south-central coast — those closest to the quake's epicenter. Chile's death toll reached 723, and most died in the wine-growing Maule region that includes Pelluhue.

 

Survivors here found about 20 bodies, and an estimated 300 homes were destroyed.

 

Most residents were aware of the tsunami threat; street signs pointed to the nearest tsunami evacuation route. The ruins of homes, television sets, clothes, dishwaters and dead fish cover the town's black sand beaches.

 

"We ran through the highest part of town, yelling, 'Get out of your homes!'" said Claudio Escalona, 43, who fled his home near the campground with his wife and daughters, ages 4 and 6. "About 20 minutes later came three waves, two of them huge, about 6 meters (18 feet) each, and a third even bigger. That one went into everything."

 

"You could hear the screams of children, women, everyone," Escalona said. "There were the screams, and then a tremendous silence."

 

Destruction is widespread and food scarce all along the coast — in towns like Talca and Cauquenes, Curico and San Javier. In Curanipe, the local church served as a morgue. In Cauquenes, people quickly buried their dead because the funeral home had no electricity.

 

President Michelle Bachelet said authorities were flying hundreds of tons of food, water and other basics into the region.

 

After the quake rocked the gritty port town of Talcahuano, Marioli Gatica and her extended family huddled in a circle on the floor of their seaside wooden home, listening to the radio by a lantern's light.

 

They heard firefighters urging citizens to stay calm and stay inside. They heard nothing about a tsunami — until it slammed into their house with an unearthly roar. Gatica's house exploded with water. The family was swept below the surface, swirling amid loose ship containers and other heavy debris that smashed buildings into oblivion all around them.

 

"We were sitting there one moment and the next I looked up into the water and saw cables and furniture floating," Gatica said.

 

Two of the giant containers crushed Gatica's home. A third grounded between the ocean and where she floated, keeping the retreating tsunami from dragging her and other relatives out to sea. Her 11-year-old daughter, Ninoska Elgueta, clung to a tree as the wave retreated.

 

All the family survived except Gatica's 76-year-old mother, Nery Valdebenito, Gatica said. "I think my mother is trapped beneath" the house.

 

Firefighters with search dogs examined the ruins of her home. The group leader drew his finger across his neck: No one alive there.

 

Close to 80 percent of Talcahuano's 180,000 people are homeless, with 10,000 homes uninhabitable and hundreds more destroyed, Mayor Gaston Saavedra said.

 

"The port is destroyed. The streets, collapsed. City buildings, destroyed," Saavedra said.

 

In Concepcion, the biggest city near the epicenter, rescuers drilled through thick concrete to look for survivors trapped inside a toppled 70-unit apartment building. Firefighters had pulled 25 survivors and nine bodies from the structure.

 

Chile's defense minister has said the navy made a mistake by not immediately activating a tsunami warning. He said port captains who did call warnings in several coastal towns saved hundreds of lives.

 

In the village of Dichato, teenagers drinking on the beach were the first to shout the warning when they saw a horseshoe-shaped bay empty about an hour after the quake. They ran through the streets, screaming. Police joined them, using megaphones.

 

The water rose steadily, surging above the second floors of homes and lifting them off their foundations. Cars were stacked three high in the streets. Miles inland along a river valley, cows munched next to marooned boats, refrigerators, sofas and other debris.

 

"The maritime radio said there wouldn't be a tsunami," said Rogilio Reyes, who was warned off by the teenagers.

 

Dichato Mayor, Eduardo Aguilera said 49 people were missing and 800 homes were destroyed. Some people fled to high ground, only to return too early and get caught by the tsunami, he said.

 

The World Health Organization said it expected the death toll to rise as communications improve. For survivors, it said access to health services will be a major challenge.

 

In Geneva, U.N. humanitarian spokeswoman Elisabeth Byrs said Chile was seeking temporary bridges, field hospitals, satellite phones, electric generators, damage assessment teams, water purification systems, field kitchens and dialysis centers.

 

U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton said she was bringing 20 satellite phones Tuesday as a first piece of a much larger U.S. aid package. Argentina was sending six aircraft carrying a field hospital, 55 doctors and water treatment plants. Brazil was sending a field hospital and rescue teams.

 

Security remained a concern. Most markets in Concepcion were ransacked by looters and people desperate for food, water, toilet paper, gasoline and other essentials Sunday, prompting authorities to send troops and impose an overnight curfew. The interior ministry extended the city curfew to run from 8 p.m. Monday to noon Tuesday.

 

When a small convoy of armored vehicles drove along a downtown street, bystanders applauded, shouting: "Finally! Finally!" - AP

----------------------

 

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/8544693.stm

 

CHILE QUAKE CURFEW ENDS AS TROOPS SEEK END TO LOOTING

 

A curfew has ended in Chile's second city, Concepcion, with thousands of troops now trying to prevent a renewal of looting in the earthquake zone.

 

Chilean President Michelle Bachelet says 14,000 troops are now in the region, after dozens of people were arrested for looting on Monday. The looters also

set fire to a department store.

 

A special air route is being set up to deliver aid from the capital, Santiago, to Concepcion, 430km (270 miles) away.

 

Saturday morning's 8.8-magnitude quake killed at least 723 people.

 

The deteriorating security situation in Concepcion comes despite the influx of thousands of troops to reinforce local police.

 

Many of the city's 500,000 inhabitants are short of food and have seen their water and electricity supplies cut off.

 

But lorry after lorry loaded with water, food and mattresses is being held up by the military until the curfew is lifted, reports the BBC's Andy Gallacher from the checkpoint on the outskirts of Concepcion.

 

The main highway in the region is twisted and bent out of shape, but the route remains open, our correspondent says.

 

Security seems to be the biggest issue holding up rescue efforts, he adds.

Some residents quoted by Reuters news agency said they were organising groups to defend their property.

 

President Michelle Bachelet sent the troops to the region condemning "pillage and criminality".

 

"We can say that, according what we've been told from the area, the situation in Concepcion is under control today," she said.

 

But, she added, authorities would take any "necessary measure" to stop renewed looting.

 

"Our principle objective is to go and help people tackle the emergency in the disaster zone. I want them [looters] to understand this and that they'll receive rigorous legal action. We will not tolerate such actions."

 

Meanwhile, rescuers searching the rubble of a collapsed apartment building in the city in which dozens are feared trapped say they have heard signs of life and are attempting to reach survivors.

 

COASTAL DESTRUCTION

 

Reports are beginning to emerge of the scale of the devastation in other areas.

 

Up to 90% of the mud-and-wood buildings in the historic centre of Curico had been destroyed or damaged, and a hospital badly damaged, BBC reporters said.

 

Some coastal towns and villages were also hit by giant waves after the earthquake, with some reported to have been completely destroyed.

 

The government admits that its attempts to provide aid swiftly have been hampered by damaged roads and power cuts.

 

The air supply route between Santiago and Concepcion will help the authorities send more than 300 tonnes of aid, including 120 tonnes of food, to the worst affected area of the country.

 

COMMUNICATION PROBLEMS

 

INTERNATIONAL AID has begun arriving.

 

Neighbouring ARGENTINA is flying a field hospital over the Andes to Chile and has pledged half a million litres of much-needed drinking water.

 

Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva flew to Santiago and offered his nation's support, as did US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.

 

Mrs Clinton took a consignment of satellite phones with her to Santiago after the Chilean government requested communications equipment alongside field hospitals and water purification units.

 

"One of their biggest problems has been communications," Mrs Clinton told reporters. "They can't communicate into Concepcion and some of the surrounding areas."

 

After touring the disaster zone, President-elect Sebastian Pinera said the situation was worse than he had expected.

 

"When we have a catastrophe of this magnitude, when there is no electricity and no water, the population... starts losing the sense of public order," he said.

 

About two million Chileans are believed to have been affected by Saturday's earthquake, the seventh most powerful on record and the worst disaster to befall Chile in 50 years.

 

The epicentre of the quake was 115km (70 miles) north-east of Concepcion and 325km south-west of the capital Santiago.

 

About 1.5 million homes in Chile have been damaged. Most of the collapsed buildings were of older design - including many historic structures.

 

One US risk assessor, Eqecat, has put the cost of repairing the damage at between $15bn and $30bn (£9.8bn - £19.6bn) or 10-20% of the country's gross domestic product.

 

------------------

 

In the fishing village of Constitucion, the mayor said the seafront and centre had been "completely destroyed".

 

Capital's ring road demolished

 

LATEST DEATH TOLL ACCORDING TO CHILE's PRESIDENT IS 795. (News posted after 20pm EMT).

[nancyk58]

Help Red Cross and Unicef help victims of natural disasters / ICRC news dated 1.3.10

 

UPDATES OF THE SITUATION IN HAITI ON 1 MARCH 2010

 

International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC)

 

Six weeks after the earthquake struck, the ICRC continues to respond to vital needs in many stricken parts of Haiti.

 

Over the past fortnight it has reunited four children with their families in Port-au-Prince, while homeless families in Martissant have received sets of emergency household supplies.

 

At the same time, the organization is resuming the work it was doing before the earthquake, such as visiting people in detention.

 

 

01-03-2010 Operational update

 

HAITI: ICRC STILL MEETING QUAKE NEEDS WHILE RESUMING TRADITIONAL ROLE

 

Six weeks after the earthquake struck, the ICRC continues to respond to people's vital needs in many stricken parts of Haiti. Over the past fortnight it has reunited four children with their families in Port-au-Prince.

 

Volunteers of the Haitian National Red Cross Society have been at the forefront of providing disaster relief from the moment the earthquake struck, running first-aid posts, passing on health messages and helping in vaccination campaigns and aid distributions.

 

The International Red Cross and Red Crescent relief effort is being coordinated and led by the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies.

 

For more details on the overall Red Cross and Red Crescent response to the earthquake, please visit the Federation website.

 

 

CHILDREN REUNITED WITH THEIR FAMILIES

 

The ICRC, working closely with the government's Institut de bien-être social et de recherche and with the Haitian Red Cross, reunited four boys with their families over the past two weeks. The children, aged between two and 12 years, were from various parts of Port-au-Prince. The family reunifications were the first to be completed by the ICRC since the earthquake rocked the capital.

 

Since children are highly vulnerable, especially in times of natural or man-made disaster, every precaution needs to be taken to ensure that records are kept when parents and their children are separated, for whatever reason. Before going ahead with any family reunification, identities must be verified and authorizations must be obtained from the Haitian authorities – and it must be confirmed that the family members are being reunited of their own free will.

 

RISK OF DISEASE

The dire sanitation situation in the camps in Port-au-Prince continues to be of primary concern. Growing rubbish heaps must be removed, and latrines emptied, or they could become breeding grounds for mosquitoes spreading malaria and dengue fever in the weeks ahead, once the rainy season starts.

 

The risk of an outbreak of contagious disease is all the higher considering that tens of thousands of camp dwellers are squashed together in makeshift shelters. As a preventive measure, the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies, together with the Haitian Red Cross and the ICRC, have begun a massive, earthquake-related vaccination campaign, led by the Haitian government, to inoculate children against German measles, whooping cough, tetanus and diphtheria, and adults against the latter two diseases.

 

DISTRIBUTION OF AID IN VIOLENCE-PRONE MARTISSANT

Over the past few days, the ICRC has distributed 3,050 sets containing tarpaulins and rope, blankets, mosquito nets, kitchen items, soap and jerrycans to earthquake-affected families in Martissant, one of the poorest, most violence-prone neighbourhoods of the capital. The ICRC has been working in Haiti since 1994 and in the slum neighbourhoods of Port-au-Prince for more than a decade. As a result, community leaders accept the ICRC's neutral, impartial and humanitarian work, and distributions such as the one in Martissant take place with very little disruption and a great deal of goodwill.

 

Registration cards for the distribution were given only to women. They waited patiently in long lines for their turn to collect sets of tarpaulins, blankets, mosquito nets, kitchen items, soap and jerrycans. "My legs ache waiting here," remarked one woman. "But it is worth it." Two ICRC staff members gave out information about the distribution procedures and encouraged the women to be patient as they queued by entertaining them with songs and role-play. "We share jokes and make them laugh," commented Marie Wongglère J. Sully, one of the staff. "At the same time, we can help speed up the distribution process by explaining what the women have to do when they get to the head of the queue."

 

CONCERN ABOUT DETAINEES

The ICRC is resuming its traditional activities, including visits to places of detention and police stations throughout the country, where many detainees are being placed temporarily as the central prison was damaged by the earthquake. Given the current difficult situation, the ICRC is concerned more than ever about the welfare of detainees and is discussing overcrowding, treatment, prisoner records and other detention-related matters with prison authorities.

 

Two large tents were donated to the Ministry of Justice, the premises of which were ruined in the earthquake. One tent will provide a temporary location for a tribunal; the other will serve as office space.

 

 

Over the past two weeks, ICRC activities in Haiti have included the following:

 

Restoring family links

On 18 February, the ICRC reunited three boys, aged eight, 10 and 12, with their families in Port-au-Prince. It reunited another boy, aged two-and-a-half, with his mother on 25 February after transporting him to Port-au-Prince from Cap-Haïtien.

 

The ICRC is currently processing over 100 tracing cases. These include not only people seeking news of missing loved ones, but also 52 unaccompanied children for whom the ICRC is looking for their parents or guardians. This can sometimes be a lengthy process. However, the ICRC firmly believes that it is in the long-term interest of all concerned that the legal and practical formalities are completed before a child and his or her family are reunited.

 

Haitian Red Cross volunteers run tracing posts where people can register their names on the ICRC tracing website. The database currently contains over 28,400 names, including those of more than 5,700 people in Haiti announcing that they are alive.

 

Detainee welfare

In Port-au-Prince, ICRC delegates visited the prison in Carrefour and the women's prison in Pétionville, where they delivered a total of 440 hygiene kits containing toothbrushes, soap and other toiletries. They also provided prison authorities with cleaning materials and gave detainees and their families the opportunity to contact each other by telephone.

 

An ICRC delegate is visiting prisons and police stations in the south of the country to assess needs relating to the earthquake as well as to perform the ICRC's usual tasks. In this region, too, the ICRC has made it possible for detainees to talk with their families by telephone.

 

A total of 815 tarpaulins were donated to prison authorities in Port-au-Prince and Jacmel to be used for temporary sheltering.

 

ICRC water engineers coordinated the cleaning and disinfecting of the civilian prison in Archaie. Similar work had previously been carried out in the Port-au-Prince civilian prison.

 

Health

As at 26 February, some 73,000 children and adults of just under 200,000 targeted people had been vaccinated. The figure includes 13,365 children below eight years of age. They were also given vitamin A supplements and de-worming medication. The ICRC has so far been supporting the campaign in three areas where it has worked for years: Martissant, Bel-Air and Canapé-Vert.

 

Ten ICRC-supported Haitian Red Cross first-aid posts treated over 1,200 patients.

 

In addition, Red Cross volunteers promoted hygiene practices and disseminated public health messages in several camps. A mobile health clinic, staffed by members of the Finnish, Swedish and French National Red Cross Societies, worked with the Haitian Red Cross first-aid posts in Carrefour-Feuille and Canapé-Vert. It is due to expand its service to Martissant in the coming days.

 

Water and sanitation

Work has begun to install 50 latrines in the Asile neighbourhood. Twenty per cent of them will be adapted for use by the disabled. Latrines will be installed at other sites in the coming days.

 

A waste-management programme is about to start using waste collected during ongoing ICRC sanitation activities in six locations in Port-au-Prince, including the overcrowded camps for displaced people (IDPs) in Place Boyer and Boliman.

 

In Cité-Soleil, the biggest shantytown with over 200,000 inhabitants, ICRC water engineers repaired leaks to the secondary water-distribution network.

 

The ICRC continues to provide clean water for some 16,000 people living in camps and in the Cité-Soleil neighbourhood.

 

Protocols have been agreed with the Port-au-Prince water board (CAMEP) concerning the provision of fuel to three pumping stations in the Duvivier neighbourhood.

 

For further information, please contact:

Jessica Barry, ICRC Port-au-Prince, mobile: +509 3456 3392, satellite: +88 165 146 6175

 

Marçal Izard, ICRC Geneva, tel: +41 22 730 24 58 or +41 79 217 32 24

[nancyk58]

Help Red Cross and Unicef help victims of natural disasters / the Philippines

 

NEWS IN RELATION TO THE PHILIPPINES ON 3 MARCH 2010

 

EFFECTS OF EL NIÑO BEING FELT ACROSS THE COUNTRY

 

(03/03/2010 | 01:44 AM - GMA News.TV)

 

The El Niño dry spell has been causing losses in agriculture and tourism across the country, from farmlands up north to poultry farms and tourist destinations down south.

 

In Benguet in northern Philippines, water sources for mountain farmlands planted to potato, cabbage and other temperate vegetables have began to dry up due to El Niño, threatening huge agricultural losses for the country’s “Salad Bowl" and a rise in the prices of vegetables.

 

“There will be changes in the characteristic of plants. Pests and diseases are also possible," said Lolita Bentres, provincial agriculturist of Benguet.

 

In Ilagan, capital town of Isabela province also in northern Philippines, the Pinsal Falls in the Ilagan Sanctuary, a popular tourist attraction among locals, has begun to dry up also due to El Niño.

 

“If before it was as wide as an entire curtain span, now it’s probably just half a curtain wide. It’s like half of the water has been lost," said Billy Perez of the Ilagan Sanctuary.

 

A seven-foot deep swimming pool inside the sanctuary, which used to be open for public use, has also stopped operations since the spring where it gets its water supply has also dried up.

 

Farther south, in the Bicol region, corn farmers have appealed to their provincial governments for assistance to avoid further damage to their crops due to the dry spell.

 

In poultry farms in Zamboanga City in Mindanao, an average of 30 to 40 chickens die daily due to heat stroke and dehydration.

 

“That’s natural due to the heat, and also, drinking water for them has become scarce somewhat, so we raisers of chicken and other livestock are now having problems," said a local poultry farm owner.

 

Even water levels in the Maria Cristina Falls in Iligan City have begun to decrease due to the dry spell. Aside from being a popular tourist spot, the falls also provides hydroelectric power in Lanao del Norte.

- Andreo C. Calonzo/JV, GMANews.TV and GMA News

 

 

CAGAYAN EYES MULTI-WATER SOURCE SYSTEM TO TAPER EFFECTS OF DROUGHT

 

(03/03/2010 | 10:30 AM - GMA News.TV)

 

Officials from the northern province of Cagayan say it needs to activate the multiple uses of water systems to ease the severe effects of the El Niño phenomenon.

 

Jack Enrile, senior economic adviser of the province and concurrent senior consultant of the Cagayan Economic Zone Authority (CEZA), said that with the scarcity of water brought by the prolonged drought, water resources should be put into better use to enable communities to ease the impact of the dry spell.

 

"While water for agriculture is essential, we will also activate the multiple uses of this scarce resource for home gardens, poultry and livestock raising, aquaculture and rural enterprise among others," Enrile said.

 

EXPECT THE WORST

Enrile made the recommendation on Tuesday as the Philippine Atmospheric Geophysical and Astronomical Services Administration (Pagasa) predicted that Northern Luzon, particularly Cagayan Valley, will experience temperatures of up to 40 degrees Celsius from May to June.

 

"We must expect the worst since the arrival of summer has yet to be officially declared and already hotter weather is predicted," he said.

 

Among his recommendations is the optimized tapping of water from upper catchments down to estuaries and coastal wetlands through multi-purpose reservoirs.

 

Water impoundment projects in Cagayan already exist but Enrile said its integrated management should be strengthened since irrigation systems are often the only water providers during this kind of weather disturbances. Farmers are affected most because many cannot still afford irrigation service.

 

BILLIONS IN LOSSES

The Philippines is expected to lose at least P20 billion in the agriculture sector due to the El Niño phenomenon.

 

Data from the Department of Agriculture (DA) show that an estimated P12.24 billion worth in rice production, P5.2 billion in corn, P2.54 billion in marine catch and P443 million in high value crops will be affected by the El Niño crisis which is expected to last until July.

 

Cagayan and Isabela, the worst hit by the drought, have already lost more than P3 billion in agricultural inputs with Cagayan shouldering nearly half of the total losses in the region.

 

Other areas hit by the dry spell are Benguet, Batanes, Nueva Vizcaya, Nueva Ecija, Bulacan, Pampanga, Batangas, Iloilo, Guimaras, Antique, Negros Occidental and Capiz.

 

Magat Dam in Ramon, Isabela, the source of water to some 84,000 hectares of farmlands, has reported a record low water level while supply in Metro Manila has been cut to almost a quarter of what Angat Dam used to allocate.

 

Reports said poultry farms in Zamboanga City in Mindanao are reportedly losing an average of 30 to 40 chickens daily due to heat stroke and dehydration.

 

RECEDING WATERS

Water falls including Pinzal in Isabela and Maria Cristina in Iligan City, which provides hydroelectric power in Lanao del Norte, have likewise been affected.

 

This scarcity of water has prompted Enrile to issue his proposal of best water management practices to mitigate the damage to the economy in Cagayan and elsewhere.

 

"Proper water management is the key in easing the impact of drought. Even if irrigation systems have been designed for field crops, they can also be used such as for cattle or backyard irrigation," he said.

 

"We must prepare for what the weather bureau predicts to a reduction in rainfall of up to 60 percent," he added.

- RSJ, GMANews.TV

[nancyk58]

UPDATES OF THE SITUATION IN CHILE ON 2 AND 3 MARCH 2010 FROM BBC

 

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/8546478.stm / Page last updated at 20:46

GMT, Tuesday, 2 March 2010

 

CHILE's CURFEW CITY TENSE AMID AFTERSHOCKS AND LOOTING

 

By Will Grant, BBC News, Concepcion

 

The drive down to Concepcion from Santiago passes through some spectacular countryside.

 

After travelling past the vineyards of the wine-making region the landscape becomes more rugged as you head into Bio-Bio region and Chile's second city.

 

But since this city was rocked by Saturday's earthquake, the normally modern and well-developed roads are now twisted and broken throughout the route.

 

After a journey beset by fallen bridges and long diversions, the final approach into the province of Concepcion came to a frustrating halt just kilometres from the city.

 

The military set up a 16-hour long curfew and were escorting just the most important aid vehicles past the disturbances.

 

As the young lieutenant explained the situation to a crowd of drivers waiting to enter Concepcion, the ground shook twice in quick succession. The daily aftershocks are still very noticeable here.

 

After some negotiation we're given the piece of paper which grants us access to the quake zone.

 

It is a few kilometres down the road that the scope of this earthquake at last becomes clear.

 

We pass by a destroyed shopping mall and half-a-dozen collapsed buildings on our arrival.

 

Hundreds of soldiers are patrolling the streets and evidence of the recent looting is everywhere.

 

Yet by arriving during a curfew, Concepcion is eerily devoid of cars and almost of people.

 

'NO HELP'

 

At a destroyed apartment block, where apparently eight bodies have been pulled from the rubble, rescue workers are still searching for survivors using sniffer dogs.

 

They're concerned too about a half-finished apartment block which they say has been structurally damaged and could collapse at any moment.

 

Given the constant earth tremors beneath us, it's a distinct possibility.

Then suddenly, the city emerges from its strict curfew.

 

Thousands of drivers are on the streets trying to reach the nearby town of San Pedro to find clean water and safe shelter. Others, however, can't leave.

 

"We've been defending our homes from the looters," Eduardo Santos tells me, standing outside a badly-cracked apartment block which he and his family are too frightened to sleep in.

 

Instead, they are living in a hastily-erected tent with several other families from the same building.

 

The authorities just walk past us and don't help, he says pointing to some of the troops posted to the city who are dealing with a damaged bridge.

 

Eduardo makes another emergency run into his apartment to get fresh water but refuses to stay there more than a couple of minutes.

 

That has put him in conflict with the troops who want everyone off the streets by nightfall and with the looters who may try again to break into his empty home.

 

 

CHILE 'NOT FACING FOOD SHORTAGES' AFTER EARTHQUAKE

 

Chile's President Michelle Bachelet says the country is not facing shortages of food and fuel after Saturday's powerful earthquake.

 

Aid is being distributed in Concepcion and other badly-damaged towns where the army had to quell outbreaks of looting.

 

Nearly 800 people are known to have died in the 8.8 magnitude quake and the powerful tsunami it generated.

 

The navy has said it is partially to blame for coastal towns not being clearly warned of the tsunami danger.

 

The 14,000 troops President Bachelet has sent to the earthquake zone have restored order in Concepcion, Chile's second-largest city, after an 18-hour curfew was put in place to prevent looting that broke out.

 

The curfew was extended from 1800 (2100 GMT) on Tuesday to noon Wednesday in Concepcion and similar curfews have been imposed in six other towns badly affected by the earthquake.

 

On Wednesday, President Bachelet sought to calm fears that there was not enough food and water in the earthquake zone.

 

"There is no shortage, there is enough food and therefore we must remain calm," she said.

 

"There is also enough fuel, there is no risk of shortages."

 

Dozens of people were arrested in Concepcion on Monday for looting and on Tuesday the mayor of Hualpen appealed for help in a radio interview, saying his town had been taken over by "thugs".

 

Troops are fanning out to supervise the delivery of food, medicine and water to hundreds of thousands of people in need.

 

A special air route has been set up to deliver aid from the capital, Santiago, to Concepcion, 430km (270 miles) to the south.

 

International aid from Chile's neighbours has been arriving as well.

 

RESPONSE ROW

 

Rescue crews with sniffer dogs have stepped up the search for survivors and in Concepcion, heavy equipment is being used to help move the heaps of rubble.

 

Officials say 799 people are confirmed to have died but there are reports of many people still missing in the coastal town of CONSTITUCION.

 

There have been complaints that the number of deaths could have been lower if the government had moved more quickly immediately after the earthquake struck before dawn on Saturday.

 

The full extent of damage from one of the most powerful earthquakes ever recorded was difficult to immediately assess with roads and bridges badly damaged and power and communication links cut.

 

President Bachelet initially declined international offers of help but has now asked for generators, mobile hospitals and water treatment plants.

 

An admiral said Chile's navy was partially to blame for the lack of a clear tsunami warning, but said the natural disaster agency should share the blame.

 

"We were unclear with the information we gave because we were not precise enough to tell the president if the alert was to be maintained or cancelled," said the navy's Admiral Edmundo Gonzalez.

 

"And this undoubtedly, with the information that the head of the [oceanographic service] gave to the president, undoubtedly stopped the [government natural disaster agency], under instructions from the president, from declaring an alert."

 

The head of the natural disaster agency, Carmen Fernandez, said an earlier alert would not have helped save lives because there was no system in place to tell people in time.

 

The tsunami reached across the Pacific, hitting New Zealand and Japan with surges of water a metre (3ft) or more high about 24 hours after the earthquake.

 

In Chile, about 200km (124 miles) of coastline were swept by the tsunami with waves of up to six metres hitting some towns. In places the water reached 2km inland, said an emergency official in the Maule region.

 

About two million Chileans are believed to have been affected by Saturday's earthquake, the seventh most powerful on record and the worst disaster to befall Chile in 50 years.

 

The epicentre of the quake was 115km north-east of Concepcion and 325km south-west of the capital Santiago.

 

About 1.5 million homes in Chile have been damaged. Most of the collapsed buildings were of older design - including many historic structures.

 

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/8546293.stm / Page last updated at 2:49 GMT, Wednesday, 3.3.2010

 

 

BACHELET URGES CHILE EARTHQUAKE SURVIVORS TO STAY CALM

 

Chile's president has appealed for calm in the earthquake-ravaged city of Concepcion, vowing a stern response to any renewal of looting and violence.

 

Michelle Bachelet says 14,000 troops are now in the region, after dozens of looters were arrested.

 

As night fell, curfews were imposed across four major urban centres in Chile, including an 18-hour curfew in Concepcion, one if its largest cities.

 

Some half a million people are homeless in a city now under military control.

 

The death toll from the 8.8-magnitude quake now stands at 795, officials say, but emergency workers also say 19 people are still unaccounted for.

 

One mayor, from Hualpen, near Concepcion, said many on the streets were more terrified of crime than aftershocks.

 

"The thugs have taken over the city. Now we are not afraid of the earthquakes, we're afraid of the criminals," Marcelo Rivera told a Chilean radio station.

 

Armoured vehicles have been stationed at strategic points across Concepcion and armed soldiers patrol the streets.

 

Groups of residents are reported to have gathered together to form vigilante groups to confront would-be looters.

 

'Necessary measure'

 

A special air route is being set up to deliver aid from the capital, Santiago, to Concepcion, 430km (270 miles) away.

 

But security in the city remains a key concern after shops and homes were looted on Monday and police made a large number of arrests.

 

The deteriorating security situation in Concepcion comes despite the influx of thousands of troops to reinforce local police.

 

"We can say that, according what we've been told from the area, the situation in Concepcion is under control today," President Michelle Bachelet said on Tuesday.

But, she added, authorities would take any "necessary measure" to stop renewed looting.

 

"Our principle objective is to go and help people tackle the emergency in the disaster zone.

 

Aid agencies have yet to reach Concepcion, reports the BBC's Andy Gallacher, who has reached the city, where many people are still awaiting water, food and mattresses.

 

However, at least two police officers appear to be posted on every corner in the city centre, our correspondent says.

 

Some residents quoted by Reuters news agency said they were organising groups to defend their property.

 

Reports from the town of Pelluhue suggested that a series of tsunamis swept through what was a tranquil seaside resort, destroying houses and claiming many lives.

 

The government admits that its attempts to provide aid swiftly have been hampered by damaged roads and power cuts.

 

The air supply route between Santiago and Concepcion will help the authorities send more than 300 tonnes of aid, including 120 tonnes of food, to the worst-affected area of the country.

[nancyk58]

UPDATES OF THE SITUATION IN CHILE ON 3 MARCH 2010 FROM FILIPINO GMA News.TV

 

POST-QUAKE CHAOS, LOOTING HURTS CHILE's PRIDE

 

(3/03/2010 | 08:24 AM - GMA News.TV)

 

CONCEPCION, Chile – Chile's president defended herself Tuesday against charges of government incompetence in a disaster that not only shattered lives and property but challenged the nation's very identity.

 

A society built on pride in its wealth and orderliness found itself suddenly facing gangs of rioters, a wounded economy and a shaken sense of civic responsibility. A government that sent 15 tons of food and medicine, a search and rescue team and 20 doctors to Haiti after the earthquake there found itself seeking emergency aid from other countries.

 

In Lota, a former coal mining town of 30,000 along the heavily damaged coast, Mayor Jorge Venegas said Tuesday that a "psychosis" had taken hold.

 

A gas station went up in flames, gunfire rattled through the night and residents guarded streets against roaming bands of looters, he told Radio Bio Bio. He said 2,000 homes had been destroyed, thousands were living in the streets and people were wielding guns, iron bars and long sticks to protect their possessions.

 

"It's urgent that the army reach our city," Venegas pleaded.

 

"It's a collective hysteria," said Francisco Santa Cruz, 20, an aid worker caring for 56 families in a camp for the newly homeless in San Pedro, across the Bio Bio River from Concepcion, the biggest city in the quake zone.

 

Like Venegas in Lota, Santa Cruz said he heard gunfire throughout the night.

 

"They used to call us (Chileans) the jaguars of South America," he said, using Chilean slang for proud and strong. "But now we know that we're not even close to that."

 

President Michelle Bachelet was on the defensive against a storm of claims that the government's response to the disaster was a failure.

 

La Tercera, an influential daily, said the looting and violence showed "incomprehensible weakness and slowness" by authorities. El Mercurio, a conservative publication many consider Chile's paper of record, called on President-elect Sebastian Pinera, who takes office March 11, to "restore hope" to Chile.

 

The government on Monday imposed an 8 p.m-to-noon curfew and sent 14,000 troops to Concepcion and surrounding areas to stop widespread looting — after virtually every market in the city had been sacked. On Tuesday the curfew was extended to begin at 6 p.m.

 

"People probably are always going to feel that we could have done things better," Bachelet insisted before receiving U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, who promised American aid. "But the reality is given the extent (of destruction), it always will be insufficient."

 

The death toll rose to 796 Tuesday and aftershocks continued to roll through the region; the stronger ones frightened residents living in temporary shelter.

 

Saturday's magnitude 8.8 quake and subsequent tsunami ravaged towns and cities along a 700-kilometer (435-mile) stretch of Chile's Pacific coast. Downed bridges and damaged or debris-strewn highways made transit difficult if not impossible in many areas.

 

Chileans seemed deeply troubled by what the disaster showed about their government — and themselves. Some looters were people grabbing basic necessities like toilet paper, but many appeared to be well-dressed citizens carting off electronic goods.

 

Catalina Sandoval, a 22-year-old construction engineering student in Concepcion, said she felt "rage, impotence and disillusion" with the lawlessness.

 

"I'm shocked," Sandoval said. "Not only criminals but well-off people are stealing."

 

Leonardo Sanhueza lamented in the Ultimas Noticias newspaper a "SOCIAL DISINTEGRATION" in the wealthy country that has led some people simply "to look out for themselves — and let the rest eat like dogs."

 

Some Chileans were so troubled that even long-held civic beliefs were shaken. Since the bloody dictatorship of Gen. Augusto Pinochet ended 20 years ago, Chileans have preferred that soldiers stay inside their barracks.

 

But police were completely outnumbered when looting began after the quake, and residents Tuesday cheered an armored troop convoy and the arrival of a military C-130 in Concepcion delivering aid supplies.

 

The economy also took a severe blow in a nation of 17 million whose industry, negligible inflation and stable democracy are the envy of Latin America.

 

Booming copper revenues and prudent fiscal policies helped the government reduce poverty from 45 percent in 1990 to 13 percent today, and more than triple per capita annual income to $14,000 in that span.

 

But a huge wealth gap exists: A study by the World Bank several years ago showed the government spent 1.3 percent of its revenue on the poorest 10 percent of Chileans and 40 percent on the richest 10 percent. Many social commentators have noted the quake exposed anew the plight of Chile's poor, among the worst affected by the disaster.

 

President-elect Pinera, a conservative billionaire, campaigned on a promise to grow the economy by 6 percent annually and transform Chile "into the best country in the world."

 

Those hopes, however, were tempered by the quake. AIR Worldwide, a Boston-based consulting firm, estimated economic losses could surpass $15 billion (7.9 billion Chilean pesos). About 2 million people were injured, made homeless or suffered other major losses.

 

Destruction was widespread and food scarce all along the coast — in towns like Talca and Cauquenes, Curico and San Javier.

 

In Curanipe, the local church served as a morgue. In Cauquenes, people quickly buried their dead because the funeral home had no electricity. Close to 80 percent of Talcahuano's 180,000 people are homeless, its port destroyed.

 

International aid has started pouring in.

 

Clinton said the United States is sending satellite phones, which Chile identified as a high priority, as well as water purification systems, generators and medical equipment. It pledged more help, including a field hospital Clinton said is "ready to go."

 

"We have these things in our country, but how can we get them to the people if we don't have bridges and roads?" said Bachelet. Most aid deliveries were being flown from — and to — airports damaged by the quake; Bachelet has said 230 tons of relief was on its way to Concepcion.

 

Argentina flew in a C-130 with much of a hospital — including a surgical and intensive care unit, ambulance and laboratory — three water treatment plants and power generation units, the military announced. Five more planeloads of aid were to arrive by Tuesday night.

 

Brazil said it was sending aid and an army field hospital. Peru said it was sending a hospital, doctors and 15 tons of blankets and tents. China offered $1 million in humanitarian aid. In Geneva, the International Red Cross asked donors for $6.5 million for water, tents and other relief.

 

The U.N. said Chile had told it the country doesn't need food or water but rather temporary bridges, field hospitals, satellite phones, electric generators, damage assessment teams, water purification systems, field kitchens and dialysis centers.

 

"The government is expecting that these needs will be filled largely through bilateral arrangements, and we need to stay within the parameters of what the country has asked for, and not to send anything that they didn't ask for," U.N. deputy emergency relief coordinator Catherine Bragg said in New York.

 

There were small signs of normalcy in Concepcion. The government began distributing food baskets and water, and some gas stations reopened.

 

Orderly lines formed outside a supermarket — the only one in the city that hadn't been sacked. - AP

 

 

CHILE EARTHQUAKE MAY HAVE SHORTENED EARTH's DAY

 

(3/03/2010 | 09:17 AM - GMA News.TV)

 

NEW YORK – Earth's days may have gotten a little bit shorter since the massive earthquake in Chile, but don't feel bad if you haven't noticed. The difference would be only about one-millionth of a second.

 

Richard Gross, a scientist at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif., and colleagues calculated that Saturday's quake shortened the day by 1.26 microseconds. A microsecond is one-millionth of a second.

 

The length of a day is the time it takes for the planet to complete one rotation — 86,400 seconds or 24 hours.

 

An earthquake can make Earth rotate faster by nudging some of its mass closer to the planet's axis, just as ice skaters can speed up their spins by pulling in their arms. Conversely, a quake can slow the rotation and lengthen the day if it redistributes mass away from that axis, Gross said Tuesday.

 

Gross said the calculated changes in length of the day are permanent. So a bunch of big quakes could add up to make the day shorter, "but these changes are very, very small."

 

So small, in fact, that scientists can't record them directly. Gross said actual observations of the length of the day are accurate to five-millionths of a second. His estimate of the effect of the Chile quake is only a quarter of that span.

 

"I'll certainly look at the observations when they come in," Gross said, but "I doubt I'll see anything." - AP

[nancyk58]

UPDATE OF THE SITUATION IN SOUTHEAST ASIA ON 4.3.10

 

UPDATE OF THE SITUATION IN TAIWAN ON 4.3.10

 

STRONG EARTHQUAKE HITS TAIWAN; INJURIES REPORTED

 

(03/04/2010 | 09:53 AM - GMA News.TV)

 

(Updated 12:14 p.m.) TAIPEI, Taiwan — A powerful 6.4-magnitude earthquake rocked southern Taiwan on Thursday, causing widespread damage and disrupting communications around the island. Local news reports said several people were injured.

 

The quake was centered in the county of Kaohsiung, and struck at a depth of about 3.1 miles (5 kilometers). Kaohsiung is about 249 miles (400 kilometers) south of the capital Taipei. No tsunami alert was issued.

 

Kuo Kai-wen, director of the Central Weather Bureau's Seismology Center, said the Taiwan quake was not geologically related to the temblor that hit Chile over the weekend, killing more than 800 people.

 

In the southern Taiwanese city of Tainan, a fire broke out in a textile factory shortly after Thursday's quake struck, sending huge plumes of black smoke billowing into the air. At least one train in southern Taiwan shifted slightly off its tracks, and authorities suspended service throughout the region. Subway service in the city of Kaohsiung was temporarily disrupted.

 

Power outages hit Taipei and at least one county to the south, and telephone service in some parts of Taiwan was spotty. - Buildings swayed in the capital when the quake struck.

 

The quake's epicenter was near the town of Jiashian, in the same area where a devastating typhoon struck last August. A Kaohsiung county official told CTI TV news that some temporary housing in the town collapsed as a result of the quake.

 

The Ministry of Defense said troops were dispatched to Jiashian to report on damage.

 

CTI reported one person was moderately injured by falling debris in Kaohsiung, and one woman was hospitalized after a wall collapsed on her scooter in the southern city of Chiayi. Also in Chiayi, one person was hurt by a falling tree, government-owned Central News Agency said.

 

A spokesman for Taiwanese President Ma Ying-jeou said authorities had been instructed to follow the quake situation closely and take steps to mitigate damage and dislocation.

 

Earthquakes frequently rattle Taiwan but most are minor and cause little or no damage.

 

However, a 7.6-magnitude temblor in central Taiwan in 1999 killed more than 2,300 people. In 2006 a 6.7-magnitude quake south of Kaohsiung severed undersea cables and disrupted telephone and Internet service to millions throughout Asia. - AP

[nancyk58]

UPDATES OF THE SITUATION IN CHILE ON 4 MARCH 2010 FROM BBC

 

CHILE QUAKE RECONSTRUCTION 'TO TAKE UP TO FOUR YEARS'

 

Page last updated at 16:03 GMT, Thursday, 4 March 2010

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/8550140.stm

 

Chile's reconstruction will take "three to four years" as the country recovers from the earthquake that killed some 800 people, its president has said.

 

"There are rural areas where everything has tumbled to the ground... infrastructure has been destroyed," Michelle Bachelet told Chilean radio.

 

It would take international aid and most of the next government's mandate to rebuild, Ms Bachelet added.

 

President-elect Sebastian Pinera is set to take over from her next week.

 

The cost of the damage, which Ms Bachelet described as "enormous", has so far been estimated at between $15bn and $30bn.

 

"Chile has the resources for a number of actions, but we will have to ask for credit from the World Bank and other entities," Ms Bachelet said.

 

Mr Pinera said his government would be one of reconstruction, with a plan of four clear stages - "to cope with the emergency needs of citizens, find people who are still missing, provide prompt and timely assistance to the sick and wounded, and restore law and order so that people can return to peace".

 

TREMORS

 

On Wednesday, strong aftershocks of magnitude 5.5 and higher were felt in several cities, including Santiago, and prompted tsunami warnings, which were later lifted.

 

An 18-hour nightly curfew remains in place in Concepcion, Chile's second largest city, and six other towns badly affected by the earthquake.

 

Officials say 799 people are confirmed to have died, but there are reports of many people still missing in the coastal town of CONSTITUCION.

 

About two million Chileans are believed to have been affected by Saturday's 8.8 magnitude earthquake, the seventh most powerful on record and the worst disaster to befall Chile in 50 years.

 

The epicentre of the quake was 115km north-east of Concepcion and 325km south-west of the capital Santiago.

 

About 1.5 million homes in Chile have been damaged.

 

Most of the collapsed buildings were of older design - including many historic structures.

 

 

CHILEANS BITTER ABOUT QUAKE RESPONSE

 

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/8548774.stm / by Will Grant, BBC News, Concepcion

 

Some four-and-a-half days after one of the largest earthquakes in recent history struck the province of CONCEPCION, and several nearby fishing villages were swept away by the subsequent tsunami, aid is now beginning to reach the affected region.

 

For days, we have seen trucks loaded with drinking water, basic food and mattresses on their way to the city, yet there was scant evidence of any major aid distribution on the ground.

 

It has been clear from chatting to the people living in the most precarious conditions in Concepcion - those who are camping in the streets in tents for fear of re-entering their quake-damaged houses - that they feel abandoned by the authorities in the wake of the disaster.

 

However, the Chilean government says it has been working hard to make sure the assistance reaches the places it is most needed.

 

The Trebol shopping mall, on the outskirts of CONCEPCION, is normally thronged with people buying the weekly groceries or visiting the hardware stores on the complex.

 

But today its car park looks very different. Guarded at every entrance by armed soldiers, the mall is the main distribution point for the regional aid effort.

 

As helicopters whirr overhead, hundreds of troops, firemen and civilian volunteers are packing shopping bags with basic goods which are then shipped out to the worst-affected areas.

 

Tonnes of rice, pasta, flour, cooking oil and salt are stacked up alongside other necessary basics like tents, sleeping bags and nappies. The car park is buzzing as fork-lift trucks criss-cross the forecourt, delivering fresh loads to eager volunteers.

 

'MODEL OF COOPERATION'

 

As his troops are loading up shopping bags with emergency supplies behind him, the ranking officer, Col Ramirez, has no time for the suggestion that the reaction has been too slow.

 

This is exemplary," he says, motioning around him, "a model of the kind of co-operation between the military and civil society which we must repeat everywhere if we're to overcome this catastrophe."

 

Some 400 government trucks have been despatched to this aid centre, with the vast majority of them already in Concepcion. In total, 16,000 tonnes of emergency supplies have arrived and the international community has also responded in recent days with particular help coming from the countries of Latin America.

 

Paulo Gutierrez is a representative of the national government who is working on delivering aid to Dichato, one of the nearby coastal towns washed away by the tsunami.

 

"I can understand the feelings of the people who say we've reacted slowly" he admits. "But at the same time, this was a disaster of such magnitude that the government has also never had to deal with an event like this before."

 

Explaining that the materials he was packing up would be airlifted to the devastated fishing village by helicopter, Paulo is adamant that the local and national authorities are doing everything they can.

 

"The next stage will be getting these items to the people and we're going to work as hard as we can until that's done."

 

But others are less impressed with the emergency response so far. Just a short drive from the supermarket forecourt is one of the numerous tent villages sprouting up across this city.

 

'WHERE IS OUR HELP'

 

Under the shelter of a motorway bridge, around two dozen families are surviving on what little clean water and food they can find, as they refuse to return to their homes until they have been made safe.

 

One of them, a young mother of two called Carina Venagas, is beginning to feel bitter about how quickly Chile offered help to Haiti following its massive earthquake earlier this year.

 

"With other countries, the President [Michelle Bachelet] and the state politicians told us that Chileans should be like brothers and extend the hand of help in their hour of need," she said.

 

"But where are our brothers? Where is our help? There are people drinking contaminated river water here, there are people who are ill. But there's been no doctors, no fresh water, nothing."

 

Meanwhile, the threat of further seismic activity continues to haunt the city. As the aid workers were taking a short break from loading the goods, there was a 5.9 aftershock which rocked Concepcion.

 

In the confusion of the ensuing minutes, a tsunami warning was reportedly issued creating panic in the streets and sending many residents running in fear.

The alarm was soon declared false, but those moments of mass hysteria revealed a city which is still very tense, and still anxious for help to arrive.

 

 

http://uk.news.yahoo.com/18/20100304/twl-tsunami-alert-rattles-quake-hit-chil-4bdc673.html

 

by Claire Rosemberg 4.3.10

 

Powerful aftershocks sent terrified people scrambling for the hills in tsunami-prone coastal areas in Chile as aid began to pour into towns after the army managed to quell looting.

 

Four days after giant waves swept hundreds to their death, two powerful aftershocks, with magnitudes of 5.9 and 6.0, triggered a brief new tsunami warning Wednesday along the stretch of Chile's central coast worst hit on Saturday.

 

Thousands of traumatized earthquake survivors rushed to higher ground as troops ushered them up hillsides. The alert was lifted less than 30 minutes later.

 

Ignacio Gutierrez, from a Chilean television station, was driving into the devastated seaside resort of Constitucion when people fleeing stopped his car and shouted: "Run, run there is a tsunami."

 

Nelson Muna was bringing food and water for victims when he heard the sirens wailing and was confronted by a scene of utter panic: "We saw soldiers running, everyone running out of town. Even the soldiers were scared."

 

Another 6.1 magnitude aftershock struck late Wednesday in central Chile, one of nearly 200 to rattle the South American nation since Saturday's massive 8.8 temblor.

 

The panic came just as thousands of troops, with the help of a strict curfew, finally appeared to have restored some semblance of normality in CONCEPCION, Chile's second city, after days of post-quake unrest.

 

Traffic lights blinked on and neon signs came back to life as electricity returned and one of the area's biggest supermarkets announced it was opening for business.

 

With armored military vehicles guarding strategic points, food rations were being distributed by soldiers and volunteers in an orderly way, easing public anxiety after days when locals were left to defend themselves from armed gangs and arson attacks.

 

Deputy Interior Minister Patricio Rosende said more than 8,000 tons of relief aid have been distributed so far in affected areas, with another 174 tons ready for aerial and overland distribution on Thursday and 700 tons by two navy ships.

 

But families in the more remote parts of the surrounding Maule and Bio Bio regions complained they were being ignored and called desperately for supplies and medicine for children suffering from fevers and other ailments.

 

"In the countryside, we have received nothing," said Juana Rodriguez, a resident of Puerta Verde, a hamlet of 36 families not far from Constitucion.

"We need water, diapers, milk," she pleaded.

 

On Wednesday, the official death toll from the quake and the tsunami it unleashed rose to 802.

 

The majority of the new deaths were reported in the region north of Concepcion called MAULE, where nearly 600 people have been confirmed dead.

 

The toll, so far largely made up of people killed in the tsunami that followed the quake, is expected to rise sharply as coastal areas account for hundreds of missing.

 

In the seaside resort of Constitucion, before Wednesday's tsunami alert, sobbing relatives visited the morgue to identify swollen remains. Seven unidentified corpses in advanced stages of decomposition were listed as "NN," or "No Name."

 

"Most of the bodies are badly bloated and mutilated, difficult to identify. The stench is terrible," said an army lieutenant. "We're expecting more."

 

The handwritten list on a large white board propped against the morgue fence showed 78 dead from the tsunami that razed low-lying areas of a town that was a holiday paradise before disaster struck.

 

The head of the mayor's office said around 100 people were confirmed dead, but that at least 300 more were missing and feared dead in CONSTITUCION alone.

 

Despite being one of Latin America's richest countries, Chile has struggled to cope with the scale of a catastrophe thought to have cost it tens of billions of dollars.

 

President Michelle Bachelet, who has deployed 14,000 troops to the disaster zone, addressed the nation again on Wednesday, laying out in detail the extent of the damage.

 

"The reconstruction task will be enormous," said Bachelet, admitting many of Chile's lifeline industries, from agriculture and fishing to tourism and trade, had been decimated by the disaster.

 

From other NEWS SITES:

 

France24 CHILE: Powerful aftershocks hamper post-quake aid efforts - 4.3.2010

 

IAfrica.com Alert rattles Chileans - 4.3.2010

 

Reuters Chile keeps shaking, rattling survivors - 4.3.2010

 

Sky News Strong Quake Aftershock Hits Central Chile - 4.3.2010

[nancyk58]

News in relation to the CHILE earthquake from Filipino GMA News.TV on 4.3.10

 

CHILE MILITARY DELIVERS AID, BUT FIRST HELPS ITS OWN

 

(03/04/2010 | 09:04 AM - GMA News.TV)

 

CONCEPCION, Chile – Four days after a deadly earthquake, Chile's military finally rolled out a MASSIVE HUMANITARIAN AID EFFORT Wednesday that promised to improve an image long associated with dictatorship-era repression.

 

The dump trucks that soldiers spent all night helping fill with bags of food made their first deliveries in a neighborhood of military families who already had enough to eat.

 

After days of looting, rifle-toting troops occupied nearly every block of hard-hit CONCEPCION on Wednesday, enforcing a CURFEW that expired at noon with checkpoints throughout the city. With the streets more secure, they focused on AID.

 

Soldiers had worked overnight stuffing basics including flour, canned beans, cooking oil and tea into hundreds of plastic bags that volunteers loaded into dump trucks. Municipal workers then distributed the bags to survivors, many of whom had gone without fresh food or drinking water since Saturday's quake.

 

The convoy rolled minutes after the curfew expired — the first of many to deploy throughout the disaster area, army Lt. Col. Juan Carlos Andrades said.

 

Its first stop: A neighborhood inhabited by military families, next to army headquarters in Concepcion.

 

"This entire block belongs to the army," said Yanira Cifuentes, 31, the very first to get aid. She said her husband is an officer.

 

Cifuentes said the aid was welcome after days of sleeping in tents and sharing food with neighbors over a wood fire. But she also said the neighborhood hadn't gone hungry because residents had access to food at the regiment.

 

"Until now we have been OK, sharing everything with each other," she said.

 

Military officers who refused to give their names insisted their families were suffering, too, and said many soldiers have been working around the clock since the quake not knowing how their loved ones fared. Still, it was unclear who ordered the first food delivery to the military housing on General Novoa Avenue.

 

Army Cmdr. Antonio Besamat said LOCAL AUTHORITIES controlled FOOD DISTRIBUTION, with the ARMED FORCES providing only SECURITY. Juan Piedra, of the National Emergency Office, said civilian officials must follow military decisions under terms of the state of emergency declared by President Michelle Bachelet.

 

Some residents were angry not at the troops but at the local government, which had announced Tuesday that none of the first aid shipments would go to neighborhoods inhabited by people who took goods from ruined stores. Many of those neighborhoods are Concepcion's poorest.

 

"Aid should reach those who have nothing first," said Luis Sarzosa, 47, a heavy equipment operator. "The well-off always get things first and the people with nothing, they leave to the side."

 

His sister Marcela Sarzosa, a 44-year-old homemaker who lives across the train tracks from a huge supermarket whose looting by hundreds of her neighbors sparked more widespread break-ins in Concepcion, said: "I didn't loot anything. Who's going to help me?"

 

Survivors had cheered the troops' arrival and the restoration of order in streets still littered with rubble, downed power lines and destroyed cars. Citizens' applause — mixed with cries of "Finally!" — have soldiers proud of their role in keeping the peace, a welcome feeling for many in Chile's armed forces who have generally not been used for police work during 20 years of democracy.

 

Since the bloody 1973-1990 dictatorship of Gen. Augusto Pinochet, many Chileans have preferred that soldiers stay inside their barracks. But police were overwhelmed when looting began after the quake, and Bachelet took the unprecedented step on Sunday of declaring an emergency that turned 14,000 soldiers into peacekeepers in their own country.

 

Aid from the national government had begun to reach some small communities around Concepcion by helicopter Tuesday, but the distribution effort became visible to the rest of the public only Wednesday with the convoy of seven dump trucks delivering food bags.

 

The food was donated by the government and businesses including the Lider Hipermart chain — a subsidiary of Wal-Mart — whose one store in Concepcion that wasn't looted has now been comandeered by the Chilean military.

 

C-17 transport planes were delivering more food and troops to Concepcion, and some 150 military trucks were being deployed in the disaster area. Military helicopters ferried DISASTER AID from the city to smaller towns and villages along the Pacific coast that were destroyed by the tsunami. In nearby Talcahuano, a FIELD HOSPITAL was erected to relieve pressure on a quake-damaged hospital in Concepcion, and local government officials were distributing 17,000 meal rations.

 

Saturday's magnitude-8.8 quake and tsunami ravaged a 700-kilometer (435-mile) stretch of Chile's Pacific coast. Downed bridges and damaged or debris-strewn highways made transit difficult if not impossible in many areas. The official death toll reached 802 on Wednesday.

 

Amid continuing aftershocks, officials installed barriers around more tall buildings in Concepcion, including a 20-story skyscraper whose heavily damaged upper floors are now leaning over Bernardo O'Higgins Avenue.

 

Most businesses in Concepcion were still closed, with power and water only slowly coming back in scattered areas. Many survivors still had to take river water in buckets to flush toilets.

 

In Lota, a town of 50,000 where tent camps have sprouted, officials took water from the Rio Negro and trucked it to needy neighborhoods, urging residents to boil it before using it.

 

In Chile's capital of Santiago, air force chief Gen. Ricardo Ortega said he had planes ready to deliver aid just two hours after the quake but had to wait for Bachelet's emergency declaration Sunday. Bachelet said that Ortega was "badly informed" and that an air force helicopter wasn't ready for her to inspect damage until nearly six hours after the quake.

 

Seeking to end squabbling over the government's performance — the navy conceded it should have issued a tsunami alert — Bachelet declared: "Enough with pointing fingers. The main problem is helping the people." - AP

[nancyk58]

UPDATES OF THE SITUATION IN TAIWAN, HAITI AND CHILE ON 5 MARCH 2010

 

Danish TV2 text: 64 injured during the 6.4 earthquake in TAIWAN yesterday. 20 buildings collapsed. It is the first time in 100 years that this area is hit by an earthquake.

 

DR1 text: According to the United Nations the presidential election in HAITI is important. The United Nations encourages Haiti to hold the presidential election in 2010 in spite of the chaos caused by the massive earthquake. Two elections - a general and a presidential election - were scheduled to be held in 2010. The parliamentary election scheduled for February 2010 was cancelled. According to the UN it is important to prevent a constitutional crisis while the country is being rebuilt. Haiti's president, Réné Préval has promised to resign at the end of his 5-year term as president in February 2011.

 

DR1 text: Massive aftershock in CHILE. The earthquake-stricken area in Chile has been affected by a very strong aftershock. Strength: Magnitude 6.6 on the Richter scale. Next week Chile will have a new president, the conservative Sebastian Piñera. He admits that the reconstruction after the earthquake and the tsunami will leave its mark on his 4-year term as president. Piñera has announced that he will revise his government programme in accordance with the disaster.

 

DR1 text: Chaos in relation to the death toll in CHILE. According to the government 279 dead bodies have been identified. A number of dead bodies are yet to be identified. Earlier Thursday it was announced that the government's death toll reached 802. According to the Chilean Ministry of the Interior, the first information given when establishing those killed and those missing may not be exact.

 

Swedish SVT text: Only 279 dead bodies have been identified in CHILE according to the government. There will be 3 days of national mourning from Sunday 7 March. Thousands of soldiers and the curfew restored calm in the cities, towns and villages along the coast in Chile. Relief aid now reaches the affected Chileans.

 

Swedish SVT text: In CHILE there are reports of 3,000 people invading a Norwegian factory producing fish meal in Soronel south of the worst-hit Concepcion. The attackers stole about 200 tons of fish-meal.

 

Swedish SVT text: About 125 million litres of wine corresponding to 1.8 billion Swedish kroner were destroyed in the CHILE earthquake according to a US importer of Chilean wines. The largest losses were suffered by wine-growers in the Colchagua, Curcio and Maule valleys. 70% of the country's vineyards are situated very close to the epicentre of the earthquake. Wine is one of Chile's 5 largest export goods.

[nancyk58]

UPDATE OF THE SITUATION IN CHILE ON 5 + 6 MARCH 2010

 

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/8552989.stm

 

CHILE SACKS OFFICIAL OVER TSUNAMI ALERT

 

Page last updated at 21:24 GMT, Friday, 5 March 2010

 

Chile has sacked the head of its oceanographic service following the earthquake and tsunami that killed about 800 people.

 

The service, part of the Chilean navy, has been widely criticised for failing to issue a nationwide tsunami warning immediately after the quake.

 

The navy has also launched an inquiry into how the disaster was handled, a government statement said.

 

Meanwhile three powerful aftershocks rattled Chile on Friday.

 

The tremors were strong enough to bring down some damaged buildings in the second city of Concepcion.

 

Last Saturday's 8.8 magnitude earthquake, the seventh most powerful on record, was centred 115km (71 miles) north-east of Concepcion and 325km south-west of the capital Santiago.

 

'DIAGNOSIS ERROR'

 

The official statement said Commander Mariano Rojas had been removed from his post at the Hydrographic and Oceanographic Service (Shoa) because he had failed to provide a clear warning of the tsunami.

 

Port authorities in several coastal towns issued their own tsunami warnings, but a national alert never came.

 

Some experts have said the failure led to deaths.

 

An investigation will "determine responsibility and clear up the circumstances surrounding the decision-making process" in response to the quake, the statement added.

 

Military officials have admitted "an error of diagnosis" and said they transmitted "very unclear information" to President Michelle Bachelet on whether to lift or maintain a tsunami alert.

 

Nations around the Pacific issued their own tsunami alerts but the feared giant waves never materialised.

 

The Chilean navy has named Commander Patricio Carrasco as the new head of Shoa.

 

President Bachelet has said that Chile's reconstruction will take three to four years.

 

 

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/8548802.stm

 

TAIWAN EARTHQUAKE DISRUPTS POWER AND RAIL

 

Page last updated at 04:59 GMT, Thursday, 4 March 2010

 

An earthquake in southern Taiwan has disrupted power supplies in the capital, Taipei and caused the high speed rail service to be suspended.

 

There have been no reported deaths but several injuries from falling objects.

 

The US Geological Survey said the 6.4 magnitude quake hit about 70 km (43.5 miles) from southern Kaohsiung city.

 

Four years ago a 6.7 magnitude quake in the area severed undersea cables and disrupted telephone and Internet service throughout Asia.

 

Several fires broke out after the latest quake, including one in a textile factory in the southern city of Tainan, which sent out huge clouds of smoke and stalled lifts.

 

Services on the southern half of Taiwan's high-speed rail linking Taipei with the south were stopped pending safety checks. Subway service in the city of

Kaohsiung was temporarily disrupted.

 

Power outages hit Taipei and at least one county to the south, and telephone service in some parts of Taiwan was patchy. Buildings swayed in the capital when the quake struck.

 

SHAKING

 

The quake's epicentre was near the town of Jiashian, in the same area where the devastating typhoon Morakot struck last August.

 

A Kaohsiung county official told local television that some temporary housing in the town collapsed as a result of the quake.

 

Troops were sent to the area to check on the extent of damage and casualties, and local reports suggested several people were injured by falling objects.

 

"It felt like the buildings were going to collapse," Chen Pei-chi, a teacher in Shiaolin Elementary School in a village close to the epicentre told AFP news agency.

 

"I tried to get out, but my legs failed me because I was so frightened. Many children were screaming while they were running out of the classrooms."

 

Taiwan is often rattled by earthquakes. A 7.6-magnitude quake in central Taiwan in 1999 killed more than 2,300 people.

 

 

MAGNITUDE 6.5 EARTHQUAKE SHAKES INDONESIAN SUMATRA

 

(03/06/2010 | 05:20 AM - GMA News.TV)

 

JAKARTA, Indonesia — A magnitude-6.5 undersea earthquake shook the western shore of Indonesia's Sumatra island on Friday, causing panic but no casualties or damage, an official said.

 

The quake struck late at night 74 miles (119 kilometers) southeast of Pagai Selatan, an island off the western coast of Sumatra, Indonesian Meteorology and Geophysics Agency official Gian Ginanjar said.

 

The quake struck 6 miles (10 kilometers) beneath the Indian Ocean bed. There was no tsunami potential, he said.

 

Edi Firmanto, a resident of the Sumatra coastal town of Bengkulu, said people fled their homes and rushed to higher ground.

 

"I woke up when I heard my wife screaming in panic and got out with our two children and headed up a hill," Firmanto said. They went home when a village chief announced that the quake had no tsunami potential.

 

Indonesia rests on a series of fault lines that make the sprawling archipelago nation one of the most earthquake-prone.

- AP

[nancyk58]

Swedish SVT Text: CHILE MAY SHAKE FOR YEARS

 

Chile may experience aftershocks for months, maybe even years after the massive earthquake.

 

The number of aftershocks will decrease, but they can be felt for months and may occur for years, says John Bellini of the USGS Friday when 3 strong aftershocks shook Chile.

 

Since the massive 8.8-magnitude earthquake a week ago Chile has had more than 200 aftershocks, several of them with a magnitude > 6.

 

 

ZDF Text: There has been a strong magnitude-6.6 aftershock in Chile almost a week after the earthquake disaster in Chile. The epicentre was near CONCEPCION which was hard hit in the magnitude-8.8 earthquake last Saturday when more than 500 people died. Some already damaged buildings collapsed. So far there has been no reports of new victims, and there is "no fear of tsunami".

 

 

LORE posted news of a 24 HOUR TELETHON.

[nancyk58]

UPDATES OF THE SITUATION IN CHILE ON 6 MARCH 2010

 

UN CHIEF BAN KI-MOON VISITS QUAKE-HIT CHILE CITY

 

From BBC World News on 6 March 2010

 

UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon has visited a Chilean city badly damaged by last week's earthquake and promised aid to help the country recover.

 

Mr Ban flew into CONCEPCION aboard a Chilean Air Force plane and was shown a 15-storey building that had collapsed, killing at least nine people.

 

As the clear-up continues, doctors have warned that debris piled up in towns and cities poses a health hazard.

 

The official death toll stands at 452 but hundreds are still missing.

 

"Remember that we are with you... our hearts are with you," Mr Ban said in a brief statement in Concepcion.

 

"Your people helped Haiti when it was in need - now is the moment when the international community must help Chile," he said.

 

UNCLEAN WATER

 

After returning to the capital Santiago, Mr Ban said Chile would receive field hospitals, temporary bridges and other international aid that the government needs.

 

Meanwhile, doctors say cases of diarrhoea are increasing among people drinking unclean water, and they are treating injuries caused by people trying to get through the debris.

 

We are going to keep needing water, electric systems, a functioning sewage system," said Gaston Saavedra, mayor of the port city of TALCAHUANO which was badly damaged by the quake and tsunami.

 

"We need to clean up rotting fish in the streets. We need chemical toilets, and when it starts raining, people living in tents are going to get wet and sick. All this is going to cause infections," he added.

The Chilean health ministry said that so far there had been no outbreaks of dysentery or other communicable diseases and it has enough tetanus and hepatitis vaccinations for the areas worst affected.

 

Chile has been hit by regular aftershocks since the 8.8-magnitude quake last week, including at least six on Saturday morning, the largest of which measured 5.1.

 

Government officials have also struggled to determine the death toll, announcing that they had double-counted at least 271 missing as dead.

 

On Friday the figure was revised down from about 800 to 452.

[nancyk58]

UPDATES OF THE SITUATION IN CHILE ON 6 MARCH 2010 FROM TEXT TV

 

CHILE QUAKE SURVIVORS PIN HOPES ON NEW PRESIDENT

 

03/05/2010 | 08:25 AM – GMA News.TV

 

DICHATO, Chile — Chile's earthquake and tsunami smashed this pretty little tourist town into splinters, leaving immense piles of wreckage and an awful stench. Rooting through the remains Thursday, Dichato's residents said they are pinning their hopes for renewal on the new president, a conservative billionaire who takes office next week.

 

Nothing short of mammoth reconstruction can return Dichato to a semblance of what it was, and survivors here — and throughout the disaster zone — said they're hoping President-elect Sebastian Pinera is up to the job.

 

"Chile is a country on the rise, economically strong, with many businesses. And because of this we expected more" of President Michelle Bachelet's leftist administration, said Amanda Ruiz, a secretary in a construction firm. "We're disillusioned."

 

"I think he has the ability to do it," said Luis Omar Cid Jara, 66, whose bakery and roast chicken shop on Dichato's main street were destroyed.

 

Critics said Bachelet initially was reluctant to summon the military to stop looting and deliver aid, given the armed forces' brutal repression of the Chilean left in the past, especially during the 1973-1990 dictatorship of Gen. Augusto Pinochet.

 

Pinera, who takes office March 11, stepped up his criticism of the outgoing president. He called Thursday for a sweeping modernization of Chile's disaster system to eliminate what he called "the lack of coordination and the weaknesses that this tragedy has uncovered with brutal eloquence."

 

Pinera named new governors for the six hardest-hit regions and told them to get to work even before his inauguration.

 

His immediate priorities: Find the missing; ensure law and order; restore utilities; and tend to the injured. Pinera said his administration will work more closely with the military on disasters than Bachelet, and he pledged to rebuild "with the most modern and efficient standards."

 

Bachelet, whose approval ratings were sky-high before the quake, bristled at the criticism and insisted "Chile will rise" from the devastation.

 

Touring an aid distribution center in the heavily damaged city of Concepcion, Bachelet denied any delays or indecision in the hours following Saturday's pre-dawn quake. Top military officers had complained they couldn't deploy troops to quash looting or deliver aid until Bachelet finally declared a state of emergency more than 24 hours after the temblor.

 

In the coastal town of CONSTITUCION, firefighters were looking for bodies of people swept away by the tsunami as they camped on Isla Orrego, an island in the mouth of the Maure River that flows through the city. CONSTITUCION suffered perhaps the greatest loss of life in the disaster, in part because many people had come for carnival celebrations and were caught in huge waves that reached the central plaza.

 

"There were about 200 people in tents who disappeared" on Isla Orrego, Fire Chief Miguel Reyes told The Associated Press.

 

An Associated Press Television News crew witnessed several bodies being recovered, including that of a baby girl washed up on the beach.

 

Rescue and recovery were in full swing in Dichato, where firefighters used long poles to probe for bodies in huge piles of muddy sand and beach wreckage. The navy ferried troops ashore to help unload 86 tons of food.

 

Volunteers canvassed camps up in the hills created by people who abandoned their ruined property in town, fearing another tsunami because of frequent aftershocks. They handed out carloads of clothing and food.

 

The magnitude-8.8 quake — one of the strongest on record — and the tsunami that followed ravaged a 700-kilometer (435-mile) stretch of Chile's Pacific coast and killed at least 802 people. The government said Thursday it had identified 279 of the dead.

 

Authorities have not said how many are missing but do say 2 million people were affected. They declared a three-day official mourning period starting Sunday.

 

Bachelet said it could take at least three years to bring the region back.

 

"The country doesn't deserve this. It's going to be — it's going to be very hard moving ahead," she told ADN radio.

 

The army was flying in 320 tons of aid, and the navy was shipping 270 more tons to coastal towns cut off from the rest of Chile.

 

DICHATO is nestled between pine-forested hills and a lovely sheltered bay where colorful fishing boats served coastal communities and export companies. Its residents proudly note their beach is the only one in the region where children could swim safely in the ocean. Its population of 4,000 triples each January and February with TOURISTS — many were in town when disaster struck — and residents count on that brief summer vacation for much of their income.

 

The quake and tsunami killed at least 19 people in DICHATO and smashed neat wooden houses and small hotels into huge splinter piles. The surge ruined most other buildings in town, which stank Thursday with decomposing fish. One fishing boat marooned far inland was full of rotting octopus.

 

The Bachelet government had made a difference in DICHATO, building 130 neat mustard-yellow duplexes in a public housing project that just opened in September and providing 60 million pesos — $120,000 — to restore the facades of businesses along main street, said Mabel Gomez, president of the local chamber of commerce.

 

Gomez, 29, ran several small businesses, providing public baths on the beach, an Internet and phone center, and several small cabanas to tourists. But Dichato doesn't have a bank, and like many business owners, Gomez lost the entire season's profits — 6 million pesos, about $12,000 — she had planned to deposit later this month.

 

"Just like the government has helped other countries, now it has to help us here," said Cid, the bakery and chicken shop owner. Booming profits from the state-owned Codelco mining company — which Bachelet zealously husbanded even as she spent more on social programs than any previous president — will have to be spent by Pinera on reconstruction, Cid said.

 

Chile has asked other countries and the United Nations for temporary bridges, field hospitals, satellite phones, electric generators, water purification systems, field kitchens and dialysis centers. Some 36 hospitals were either severely damaged or destroyed, Bachelet said Thursday.

 

UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon planned to meet both Bachelet and Pinera on Friday and tour Concepcion.

 

Pinera now plans an austere inaugural, with only brief stays by foreign dignitaries to enable police to focus on quake duty, and will fly to the disaster zone immediately after he is sworn in. Bachelet has canceled a farewell dinner planned for the eve of the inaugural.

 

A quake with a preliminary magnitude of 6.3 struck late Thursday near Calama, 780 miles (1,260 kilometers) north of Santiago and roughly 1,000 miles (1,600 kilometers) north of the epicenter of Saturday's quake. There were no immediate reports of damage or injuries.

 

Both quakes occurred along the same tectonic boundary where the Nazca Plate, moving eastward, is forcing its way under the continental plate of South America, said Susan Potter, a geophysicist with the US Geological Survey's National Earthquake Information Center in Golden, Colo. – AP

 

 

STRONG AFTERSHOCKS HIT QUAKE-STUNNED CHILE

 

Eva Vergaria, Associated Press Writer / (03/06/2010 | 05:01 AM – GMA News.TV)

 

CONCEPCION, Chile — The most powerful aftershock in six days sent terrified Chileans fleeing into quake-shattered streets and forced doctors to evacuate some patients from a major hospital on Friday as the nation struggled to comprehend the scope of the disaster that hit it.

 

People raced into the streets in pajamas as a magnitude-6.0 aftershock struck Concepcion shortly before dawn.

 

A magnitude-6.6 shock at 8:47 a.m. (6:47 a.m. EST; 1147 GMT) then rattled buildings for nearly a minute.

 

It was the strongest aftershock since a magnitude-6.9 jolt shortly after Saturday's historic quake and it sent office chairs spilling from upper floor of an already-damaged 22-story building.

 

Fear of additional damage led officials to evacuate some patients from the regional hospital in downtown CONCEPCION.

 

"They sent us all home," said 47-year-old Aaron Valenzuela, who hobbled through the street because four toes had been amputated due to an injury he suffered in Saturday's big quake.

 

Dr. Patricia Correa, who was overseeing the hospital's emergency ward, said her part of the five-story building "is on the point of collapsing. The walls cracked."

 

As a daily curfew meant to halt looting expired at noon, people flooded into the streets of Concepcion and formed lines about 100 long behind an intermittently functioning automatic teller machine, for a rare open pharmacy and at a corner store.

 

A sign at the shop announced it was out of flour, water, candles, rice, cheese, eggs and diapers, though jam, sugar, coffee and onions remained.

 

President Michelle Bachelet, meanwhile, met with her successor, Sebastian Pinera, and they promised to try to avoid letting the March 11 hand-over of power interrupt aid efforts.

 

"The new government will have an immense challenge," Bachelet said.

 

Officials were still struggling to determine the human toll of the magnitude-8.8 quake, as well as the damage to roads, ports and buildings such as hospitals.

 

Disaster officials announced they had double-counted at least 271 missing as dead in the hardest-hit part of the country — an error that would drop the official death toll to about 540 if there were no other mistakes.

 

But Interior Department officials said that from now on, they would release only the number of dead who had been identified: 279 as of Friday.

 

The government also said Friday it had removed Cmdr. Mariano Rojas as head of the Navy's oceanographic service over its failure to issue a tsunami warning for the Pacific immediately after Saturday's quake.

 

Port captains in several towns issued their own warnings, but a national alert never came,/I] and some say that failure led to deaths. The tsunami is believed responsible for much of the deaths and damage.

 

Bachelet says it will take three years to rebuild the region wracked by the earthquake and tsunami, and that task is all too clear to the people trying to clean up the ruins of their towns.

 

In the tourist town of DICHATO, a few kilometers (miles) north up the coast from CONCEPCION, the quake and tsunami killed at least 19 people and smashed neat wooden houses and small hotels into huge piles of splinters.

 

The town of 4,000 people stank Thursday of decomposing fish and a fishing boat marooned far inland was full of rotting octopus.

 

Bachelet's government had made a difference in the town before the quake, building 130 neat mustard-yellow duplexes in a public housing project that opened in September and providing 60 million pesos — $120,000 — to restore the facades of businesses along main street, said Mabel Gomez, president of the local chamber of commerce.

 

But as they rooted through the ruins, Dichato's residents said they are pinning their hopes for renewal on the next president, a conservative billionaire.

 

Pinera, who takes office March 11, named new governors for the six hardest-hit regions and told them to get to work even before his inauguration. His immediate priorities: Find the missing; ensure law and order; restore utilities; and tend to the injured.

 

Pinera also stepped up his criticism of Bachelet's administration on Thursday, knocking "the lack of coordination and the weaknesses that this tragedy has uncovered with brutal eloquence."

 

Critics said Bachelet initially was reluctant to summon the military to stop looting and deliver aid, given the armed forces' brutal repression of the Chilean left in the past, especially during the 1973-1990 dictatorship of Gen. Augusto Pinochet.

 

Top military officers had complained they couldn't deploy troops to quash looting or deliver aid until Bachelet finally declared a state of emergency more than 24 hours after the temblor.

 

The magnitude-8.8 quake — one of the strongest on record — and the tsunami that followed ravaged a 700-kilometer (435-mile) stretch of Chile's Pacific coast.

 

In the coastal town of Constitucion, firefighters were looking for bodies of people swept away by the tsunami as they camped on Isla Orrego, an island in the mouth of the Maure River that flows through the city.

 

CONSTITUCION suffered perhaps the greatest loss of life in the disaster,/I] in part because many people had come for carnival celebrations and were caught in huge waves that reached the central plaza.

 

"There were about 200 people in tents who disappeared" on Isla Orrego, Fire Chief Miguel Reyes told The Associated Press. An AP Television News crew witnessed several bodies being recovered, including that of a baby girl washed up on the beach. - AP

 

 

DOCTORS WARN OF DISEASES FROM CHILE WRECKAGE

 

Eva Vergara, Associated Press Writer

 

(03/07/2010 | 01:33 AM – GMA News.TV)

 

CONCEPCION, Chile — Huge piles of wreckage and tons of rotting fish and other debris blanketing the ground are turning the coastal towns shattered by Chile's earthquake and tsunami into nests of infection, doctors warned./COLOR]

 

As calls for medicine and shelter grew, U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon flew into the heavily damaged city of CONCEPCION aboard a Chilean air force plane Saturday, following at least six moderate aftershocks. He was driven immediately to the city's ground zero, where a building had collapsed and a couple called out one last time to a missing son believed killed in the wreckage.

 

As Chileans lined up for hepatitis and tetanus shots Friday on the opening day of an EXTENSIVE VACCINATION CAMPAIGN, doctors said cases of diarrhea are increasing from people drinking unclean water and a growing number of patients are suffering injuries wading through the mess.

 

"We are going to keep needing water, electric systems, a functioning sewage system. We need to clean up rotting fish in the streets. We need chemical toilets, and when it starts raining, people living in tents are going to get wet and sick. All this is going to cause infections," said Talcahuano Mayor Gaston Saavedra, whose port city was heavily damaged by the Feb. 27 quake and tsunami.

 

The government faces other health care problems. LOOTING OF PHARMACIES has made MEDICINE SCARCE for people suffering from diabetes, hypertension and psychological illnesses, and 36 hospitals were heavily damaged or destroyed in the quake.

 

Chile said more than a dozen of its own military and civilian field hospitals were operating Friday. Mobile hospitals from a half-dozen other countries also were opening or about to open — an unusual situation for a country that proudly sends rescue and relief teams to the world's trouble spots.

 

But most of the foreign units weren't treating anyone a week after the disaster. Chile insisted donor nations first figure out how to coordinate with Chile's advanced, if wounded, public health system.

 

A PERUVIAN field hospital opened in Concepcion on Thursday with three operating rooms and 28 beds. But surgeons and trauma specialists stood with their arms crossed Friday, waiting for patients to be sent by local health officials.

 

Luis Ojeda, a Spanish doctor working with Doctors Without Borders, said his team arrived Monday but was still waiting for Chile's instructions on where to deploy.

 

"This country is atypical," Ojeda said, adding he'd spent his time checking on the displaced in tent camps.

 

Chile signed an OPERATING AGREEMENT for a U.S. FIELD HOSPITAL Friday, enabling 57 U.S. military personnel to work side-by-side with civilian Chilean doctors in coming days to support a population of 3,000 in the town of ANGOL. In Rancagua, a Cuban field hospital was fully operational.

 

The Chilean Health Ministry said that there had been no outbreaks of dysentery or other communicable diseases and that it has enough tetanus and hepatitis vaccinations for the disaster zone.

 

Field hospitals being provided by ARGENTINA, BRAZIL, CUBA, PERU, SPAIN and the U.S. are meant to relieve 36 heavily damaged or destroyed Chilean hospitals, including Santiago's now-closed 522-bed Felix Bulnes Hospital. Brazil's emergency field hospital was sent to western Santiago to pick up the slack.

 

Powerful aftershocks Friday forced the evacuation of an older wing of CONCEPCION's five-story REGIONAL HOSPITAL.

 

Doctors couldn't access clean scalpels because a sterilization room was too dangerous to enter. PERUVIAN doctors donated their sterilizing equipment, which was quickly put to use for the amputation of four infected toes from Aaron Valenzuela, who stepped on broken glass Monday while looking for drinking water. He was sent home after surgery because of the hospital damage. "They threw us all out and told us to go home," Valenzuela said as he limped away.

 

The emergency room supervisor, Dr. Patricia Correa, said her part of the hospital "is on the point of collapsing." "The walls cracked," she said.

 

The most powerful aftershock in six days sent terrified Chileans fleeing into the streets and forced doctors to evacuate some patients from the regional hospital. The magnitude-6.6 shock at 8:47 a.m. rattled buildings for nearly a minute and sent office chairs spilling from an exposed upper floor of a badly damaged 22-story office building.

 

At least six smaller aftershocks shook Chile on Saturday morning, the largest of which had a preliminary magnitude of 5.1, according to the U.S. Geological Survey in Golden, Colorado. No additional damages or injuries were immediately reported.

 

Authorities decided Saturday to completely demolish a 15-story building that had partially collapsed in the earthquake in the neighborhood visited by U.N. Secretary-General Ban, after emergency workers determined there were no more survivors to be found.

 

But one couple took one last walk through the wreckage where they called out in vain for their missing son, Jose Luis.

 

Also Saturday, police recovered washing machines, refrigerators, plasma TVS, and mattresses that looters had stashed in their homes, said police Capt. Claudio Munoz. He said five people would be charged.

 

Survivors of the quake struggled to find medicines and fill prescriptions because pharmacies were looted earlier in the week and POWER OUTAGES still affected businesses and clinics. More than 100 people lined up outside one of Concepcion's few open drug stores on Friday. Soldiers stood guard nearby.

 

"I haven't taken my medicine for two or three days. I really should take it every day," said Miguel Hidalgo, a retired truck driver with chronic hypertension who was told there was one package left of a drug he needs to keep his kidneys working.

 

"People have nowhere to go to get medicine," said Dr. Solange Cadiz Iturrieta, who joined volunteers handing out donated drugs to people outside a community radio station.

 

The Chilean Health Ministry said its top priorities included mental health care for quake survivors, garbage removal, drinking water and shelter.

 

The U.N. has said Chile needs temporary bridges, field hospitals, satellite phones, electric generators, damage assessment teams, water purification systems, field kitchens and dialysis centers.

 

Housing Minister Patricia Poblete said at least 500,000 homes were destroyed but she expected that figure to reach as high as 1.5 million once surveys are complete. In New York, Chile's U.N. ambassador, Heraldo Munoz, said reconstruction will cost Chile an estimated $30 billion.

 

Officials struggled to determine the death toll. Disaster officials announced they had double-counted at least 271 missing as dead — an error that would drop the official death toll to about 540 without other mistakes. Interior Department officials said they would now release only the number of dead who had been identified: 452 as of late Friday.

 

After days of finger pointing over the disaster response, President Michelle Bachelet and President-elect Sebastian Pinera agreed Friday to set aside their differences and work with "unity, solidarity and generosity."

 

"The new government will have an immense challenge, and we will do our job until the last day" before Thursday's inauguration, Bachelet said.— AP

[nancyk58]

UPDATE OF THE SITUATION IN CHILE, TURKEY and HAITI ON 8 and 9 MARCH 2010

 

UPDATE OF THE SITUATION IN CHILE ON 8 and 9 MARCH 2010

 

Swedish SVT Text on 8.3.10: LOOTERS IN CHILE GIVE UP

A brief amnesty did the trick: Looters in the earthquake-affected CONCEPCION returned the stolen goods or dumped them along the roads and the streets: Furniture, TV sets, refrigerators and freezers were returned. Even the threat of razzias and the arrest of at least 20 suspected looters have played a part. Policemen collected the goods dumped at the side of the pavement. The police filled a sports centre with the returned stolen goods.

 

Danish DR1, TV2 + Swedish SVT on 9.3.10: EARTHQUAKE MOVED CITY 3 METRES

Chile’s second-largest city, CONCEPCION with 350,000 inhabitants was one of the worst-hit cities by the massive magnitude-8.8 earthquake and moved 3 metres westwards according to US and Chilean researchers at Ohio State University. Chile’s capital, SANTIAGO moved almost 28 cm (27.7 cm) to the west. In neighbouring Argentina the capital Buenos Aires moved almost 4 cm westwards. About 800 Chileans lost their lives during the earthquake in Chile on 27 February 2010. There were such geological movements as far away as the Falkland Islands.

 

 

UPDATE OF THE SITUATION IN TURKEY AFTER EARTHQUAKE ON 8 MARCH 2010

 

(UPDATE) 6.0 EARTHQUAKE HITS EASTERN TURKEY, KILLS 57(3/08/2010 | 08:00 PM - GMA News.TV)

 

OKCULAR VILLAGE, Turkey – A strong earthquake with a preliminary magnitude of 6 struck eastern Turkey on Monday, killing 57 people as it knocked down stone or mud-brick houses and minarets in at least six villages, the government said.

 

The government's crisis center said about 100 other people were injured in the quake, which hit at 4:32 a.m. (0232 GMT, 9 p.m. EST Sunday) in Elazig province, about 340 miles (550 kilometers) east of Ankara, the capital.

 

The earthquake, which caught many people as they slept, was centered near the village of Basyurt and followed by more than 30 aftershocks, the strongest measuring 5.5 and 5.1, the Kandilli seismology center said.

 

The worst-hit area was the village of Okcular, where some 17 people were killed and homes crumbled into piles of dirt. Another 13 people were killed in the village of Yukari Demirci, Gov. Muammer Erol said.

 

By noon, everyone had been removed from the rubble and there was no one left buried inside the debris, Erol said.

 

"Everything has been knocked down, there is not a stone in place," said Yadin Apaydin, administrator for the village of Yukari Kanatli, where he said at least three villagers died.

 

Authorities blocked access to Okcular so ambulances and rescue teams could maneuver on the village's narrow roads. Relatives rushed to the village for news of their loved ones.

 

"The village is totally flattened," village administrator Hasan Demirdag told private NTV television.

 

Ali Riza Ferhat, an Okcular resident, said he was woken up by the jolt.

 

"I tried to get out of the door but it wouldn't open. I came out of the window and started helping my neighbors," he told NTV television. "We removed six bodies." Villagers lit fires to keep warm.

 

The quake was felt in the neighboring provinces of Tunceli, Bingol and Diyarbakir, where residents fled to the streets in panic and spent the night outdoors.

 

Some of the injuries occurred during the panic, when people jumped from windows or balconies. Video from the Dogan news agency showed residents bringing the injured to hospitals by cars and taxis.

 

Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan and Kandilli Observatory's director, Mustafa Erdik, urged residents not to enter any damaged homes, warning that they could topple from aftershocks that Erdik said could last for days.

 

Television footage showed rescue workers and soldiers at Okcular lifting debris as villagers looked on. Rescuers dug into the dirt, finding the body of an elderly man, and quickly covered him with a sheet.

 

Two women sat on mattresses wrapped in blankets. The temblor also knocked down barns, killing farm animals.

 

Turkey's Red Crescent organization sent tents and blankets to the region. Erdogan said ambulance helicopters, prefabricated homes and mobile kitchens were also being sent.

 

Earthquakes are frequent in Turkey, much of which lies on top of the North Anatolian fault. In 1999, two powerful earthquakes struck northwestern Turkey, killing about 18,000 people.

 

In 2007, an earthquake measuring 5.7 damaged buildings in Elazig, briefly trapping a woman under debris. In 2003, an earthquake measuring 6.4 magnitude collapsed a school dormitory in the neighboring province of Bingol, killing 83 children. The collapse was blamed on poor construction. - AP

 

 

NO FILIPINO CASUALTY IN TURKEY QUAKE - DFA

 

German ZDF text, ARD text, Swedish SVTtext and Danish TV2 TTV:

MASSIVE EARTHQUAKE IN EASTERN TURKEY

A massive earthquake (6.0-magnitude on the Richter scale) occurred in eastern Turkey and killed at least 57 people including children and injured at least 100 people. Many are missing according to the Turkish authorities. There are many victims in villages with old mud-brick houses, and several are feared buried under collapsed houses. The official death toll was only half the number of deaths stated by TV channels. The strong earthquake surprised the inhabitants of the province ELAZIG around 4:40 local time (3:40 European MeanTime, EMT). Many ran out of their houses in panic. Fearing more earthquakes they spent the rest of the night outdoors. Minarets of mosques collapsed in several villages according to Elazig governor Mr. Muammer Erol. Numerous buildings are completely destroyed. Rescuers are looking for survivors in the rubble. An increase in the death toll is feared. The mayor of Kovancilar, Mr. Bekir Yanilmax told the news agency AP that at least 57 were killed in 3 villages in the ELAZIG province. At least 27 aftershocks were registered in the area around the epicentre Karakocan near the village of Basyart or Basyurt North of Diarbakir.

 

Being situated in an earthquake-prone zone Turkey regularly experiences earthquakes, also deadly ones, because the continental plates of Africa and Eurasia collide there. 2 massive quakes hit the densely populated areas in the north-western part of Turkey in 1999 and cost 20,000 human lives.

 

German ZDF text on 9.3.10: AFTER THE STRONG EARTHQUAKE IN EASTERN TURKEY MANY SPENT THE NIGHT OUTDOORS

 

Following the strong magnitude-6.0 earthquake that destroyed several villages early Monday morning, hundreds spent last night outdoors even though it was very cold. At least 57 were killed. Many aftershocks occurred, and this might continue for days according to Istanbul-based Kandilli Observatory's director, Mustafa Erdik. The Turkish prime minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan said that the high number of victims by the magnitude-6.0 earthquake was due to the predominant mud-brick structure.

 

 

UPDATE OF THE SITUATION IN HAITI ON 9.3.10

 

Danish DR1: HAITI’s PRESIDENT: STOP EMERGENCY AID IN THE FORM OF FOOD SUPPLIES

Haiti’s President, Réné Préval will tell the US President Barack Obama that the emergency aid in the form of food supplies must stop in order to avoid damaging Haiti’s economy. The two presidents are to meet on Wednesday in the White House. Emergency aid such as food and water has been a lifeline for > 1.2 million Haitians who lost their homes in the earthquake. If foreign countries keep sending emergency aid to Haiti, then Haiti’s own production will face competition. Instead he appeals for assistance to rebuild Haiti and to create jobs in Haiti.

 

Danish TV2 text plus TV2 News / live: HAITI: EMERGENCY AID IN THE FORM OF FOOD SUPPLIES TO BE DIMINISHED

Foreign aid in the form of food supplies to earthquake-stricken Haiti must not harm Haiti’s internal competition. Therefore the Danish relief organization, Danish ChurchAid has now decided to stop this kind of emergency aid to the disaster-hit area. “Foreign relief organizations are not to keep pumping food supplies into Haiti, because this will - in the long term - totally destroy Haiti’s own production and trade. We have to diminish our aid in form of food supplies so that the population begins to buy food from the local peasants”, states Secretary-General Henrik Stubkjær.

 

Swedish SVT Text, Danish TV2 + TV2 News/live at noon Danish time: HAITI: US MISSIONARY RELEASED

One of the US Baptist missionaries arrested in Haiti suspected of having kidnapped Haitian children during the chaos following the strong earthquake has been released. 8 other missionaries were released in February. Only the leader of the group of missionaries is still in custody.

[nancyk58]

Help Red Cross and Unicef help victims of natural disasters / 10.3.10

 

UPDATES OF THE SITUATION IN HAITI ON 10 MARCH 2010

 

RED CROSS PRESS RELEASE on 10.3.10

 

http://www.redcross.org/

 

Posted in Press Releases, 03/10/10

 

RED CROSS PASSES THE $100 MILLION MARK IN AID FOR HAITI EARTHQUAKE RELIEF AND RECOVERY

 

Priorities in the months and years ahead will include shelter, water and sanitation, livelihood programs and disease prevention.

 

AMERICAN RED CROSS PASSES THE $100 MILLION MARK IN AID FOR HAITI EARTHQUAKE RELIEF AND RECOVERY

 

National Headquarters

2025 E Street, N.W.

Washington, DC 20006

http://www.redcross.org

 

Contact: Public Affairs Desk

FOR MEDIA ONLY

[email protected]

Phone: (202) 303-5551

 

WASHINGTON, Wednesday, March 10, 2010 — The American Red Cross today announced it is allocating an additional $24.4 million for Haiti earthquake RELIEF and RECOVERY, increasing its total commitment to date to $106.4 million.

 

The Red Cross made its funding announcement the same day that Haitian President Rene Preval is visiting the White House to discuss the urgent need for more aid from the international community to help that island nation recover from the January 12th earthquake.

 

The latest allocation of funds by the American Red Cross includes $16.1 million to support the construction of transitional shelters that will be coordinated by the global Red Cross network; $3.7 million will go to Habitat for Humanity for the purchase of emergency shelter materials, and $4.6 million will support cash grants to 16,000 families so they can buy essential items as part of a program to be run in close coordination with Haiti’s largest microfinance institute, Fonkoze .

 

“We are gravely concerned about the upcoming rainy season as well as the hurricane season for hundreds of thousands of Haiti’s homeless people,” said David Meltzer, senior vice president of international services with the American Red Cross. “The Red Cross is working feverishly to get tents and tarps to everyone who needs them, but we also recognize that these temporary shelters are not hurricane proof.”

 

“We hope that this additional infusion of millions of dollars today to Habitat for Humanity, among others, will provide emergency shelter to more people who are now sleeping out under the stars.“ Meltzer added.

 

The American Red Cross had previously spent or allocated $82 million for food, water, emergency care, shelter, relief supplies and family services for Haiti. To date, the American Red Cross has raised approximately $354 million for Haiti relief and recovery efforts.

 

Since the earthquake struck, the Red Cross global network and its partners have provided emergency shelter materials to more than 650,000 people ahead of spring rains and are reaching 80,000 people a week by delivering tens of thousands of tarps, tents, ropes, timber uprights and toolkits.

 

The remainder of the people in need are on track to receive emergency shelter on or before the beginning of May.

 

“No one ever feels that humanitarian relief is moving fast enough,” said Meltzer. “We know there are immediate and long-term needs in Haiti, and we are determined to meet them.”

 

In addition to shelter supplies, more than 400,000 people have received basic relief items from the Red Cross, such as hygiene kits, cooking tools, buckets, blankets, and mosquito nets. The Red Cross and its partners resumed a wide ranging vaccination campaign that will protect at least 250,000 children and adults from measles, diphtheria, pertussis, and tetanus. To date, more than 100,000 people have received vaccinations.

 

American Red Cross President and CEO Gail McGovern will arrive in Haiti on Thursday, her second visit to Haiti since the earthquake, to get an update on the progress that has been made since her visit in January as well as to assess next steps in the recovery.

 

Red Cross priorities in the months and years ahead will include shelter, water and sanitation, livelihood programs and disease prevention.

 

Among the group of 16,000 families to receive cash grants are 6,000 host families residing in rural communities, who are now stretching scarce resources in order to care for loved ones who fled the disaster zone.

 

An additional 10,000 women heads of households, who have lost their homes, businesses or both, will also receive a small grant to help meet their families’ immediate needs, as well as a modest loan to restart their businesses, restore their families’ source of income and hopefully begin the process of empowering them after so much tragedy and personal loss.

 

The American Red Cross will also play an important role in helping to prepare Haiti for future emergencies, including the upcoming Caribbean hurricane season.

 

“The American people have entrusted us with their hard earned money to help the people of Haiti survive and thrive following earthquake in January,” added Meltzer. “We at the American Red Cross take this responsibility very seriously and are doing our best to ensure that every dollar counts today, tomorrow and in the years to come.”

 

You can help the victims of countless crises, like the recent earthquakes in CHILE and HAITI, around the world each year by making a financial gift to the American Red Cross International Response Fund, which will provide immediate relief and long-term support through supplies, technical assistance and other support to help those in need. The American Red Cross honors donor intent. If you wish to designate your donation to a specific disaster, please do so at the time of your donation by mailing your donation with the designation to the American Red Cross, P.O. Box 37243, Washington, D.C. 20013 or to your local American Red Cross chapter. Donations to the International Response Fund can be made by phone at 1-800-REDCROSS or 1-800-257-7575 (Spanish) or online at http://www.redcross.org.

 

About the American Red Cross:

The American Red Cross shelters, feeds and provides emotional support to victims of disasters; supplies nearly half of the nation's blood; teaches lifesaving skills; provides international humanitarian aid; and supports military members and their families. The Red Cross is a charitable organization — not a government agency — and depends on volunteers and the generosity of the American public to perform its mission. For more information, please visit http://www.redcross.org or join our blog at http://blog.redcross.org.

 

 

HOW THE RED CROSS IS HELPING

 

As part of its largest international response since the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami, the global Red Cross network has helped nearly 1.9 million Haitians since the country’s January 12 earthquake.

 

It has so far spent or allocated $82 million to meet the MOST URGENT NEEDS of earthquake survivors and will continue to SUPPORT hundreds of thousands of additional survivors in the years ahead until the last donated dollar is spent.

 

Since the earthquake, the Red Cross has focused its activities in four primary areas:

 

HEALTH:

• Nearly 33,600 people (or more than 1,000 people per day) have been treated by Red Cross health care facilities and mobile teams.

• Approximately 60,000 people have been vaccinated, including against measles.

• More than 23 million text messages with key health messages have been sent to survivors.

 

RELIEF:

• More than 31,500 families (or 157, 500 people) received items like hygiene kits and other basic relief supplies.

• More than 1 million people have received food items.

 

WATER and SANITATION:

• 30 million liters of drinking water (or more than 1.5 million liters per day) have been distributed.

• An estimated 290,000 people are benefiting from this regular service.

• More than 580 latrines have been built near settlements.

 

SHELTER:

• More than 350,000 people received shelter supplies, including tents, tarps and tools.

 

The Red Cross is also providing support to Haitian families in the United States, shipping blood products to the region and restoring family links for separated loved ones.

[nancyk58]

UPDATES OF THE SITUATION ON 11 MARCH 2010

 

C H I N A

 

BBC World News / live: CHINA LANDSLIDE KILLS AT LEAST 17 PEOPLE IN THE SHAANXI PROVINCE

 

11 missing in the north-western China after today's landslide. At least 40 people were buried and at least 25 houses totally destroyed.

 

 

UPDATES OF THE SITUATION IN CHILE ON 11 MARCH 2010

 

Swedish SVT Text and Danish DR1 Text:

DESIGNATION AFTER QUAKE MISTAKE IN CHILE

 

Carmen Fernandez, director of the National Emergency Office - Onemi, resigned after admitting that she had acted too slow after the earthquake. "We were blind and speechless/ paralysed," Fernandez said recalling the hours after the quake. Last Friday President Michelle Bachelet sacked the head of the navy's oceanography service because no clear tsunami alert was issued before the deadly tsunami following the quake. So far 497 dead bodies have been identified after the disaster that affected about 2 million people. According to the authorities the regions Biobio and MAULE have power and running water again. At least 500 have been killed in the quake and in particular by the following tsunami.

 

BBC News / Live: Chile today had a new president in the Chile. Michelle Bachelet left office saying that the strong 8.8 magnitude earthquake almost 2 weeks ago was the defining moment of her term in office.

 

Danish Text/German ARD + ZDF/Swedish SVT Text: CHILE:

TREMORS AS PRESIDENT WAS SWORN IN.

Today Chile's new president, the conservative billionaire Sebastian Piñera, was sworn in as president at a low-key ceremony. The reasons for the low-key ceremony were the substantial damage and the many deaths after the massive earthquake on 27 February. Minutes before the ceremony in the city of Valparaiso, Chile was shaken by a 7.2 magnitude tremor. Many participants looked nervous and worried during the entire ceremony due to the new tremor. Almost 2 weeks after the strong 8.8-magnitude earthquake in Chile, 3 strong aftershocks / tremors shook Central Chile. The epicentre of the strongest 7.2 magnitude tremor was 150 km south of the capital, Santiago - 125 km south-west of Santiago. The earthquake occurred in about 10 km depth. The navy issued a tsunami alert. Inhabitants living close to the coast were told to seek higher ground at once. Later the tsunami alert was lifted again after a few hours. According to US Geological Survey the strongest tremor reached magnitude 6.9. The tremors could be felt in Valparaiso, where Chile's new president was sworn in and in the capital, Santiago, where thousands ran out of the houses and into the streets in Santiago.

Chile's new president says that the first reports indicate "substantial damage" in the city of Rancagua.

President Piñera's most important task is to be in charge of the rebuilding of the quake-affected areas of Chile. Chile's most important export good, copper, was not affected by the quake, but other trades / industries such as wine production and fishing industry were damaged. Many coastal areas were totally destroyed by the tsunami.

[nancyk58]

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/8561340.stm/Page last updated at 22:22

GMT, Thursday, 11 March 2010

 

NEW CHILE QUAKE AS PINERA SWORN IN AS PRESIDENT

 

correspondent Andy Gallacher: "PINERA HAS A HUGE JOB ON HIS HANDS"

 

Sebastian Pinera has been sworn in as president of Chile, minutes after it was hit by the largest aftershock since last month's devastating earthquake.

 

The 6.9-magnitude tremor was centred in O'Higgins Region, some 140km (90 miles) south of the city of Valparaiso, where the inauguration ceremony took place.

 

The congress building was evacuated soon after. On taking office, Mr Pinera said: "It's time to get to work."

 

His presidency ends two decades of left-wing rule in Chile.

 

The tycoon not only faces the challenge of reconstruction, but takes over from the highly popular Michelle Bachelet, who was the country's first woman president.

Ms Bachelet left office with an 84% popularity rating despite criticism of her government's response to February's 8.8-magnitude earthquake and ensuing tsunami, which left close to 500 people dead.

 

Earlier, Chile's disaster management chief resigned, six days after the head of the navy's oceanography service was dismissed for failing to provide a clear warning of the tsunami.

 

A BBC correspondent in the capital, Santiago, says buildings there shook and people rushed out onto the streets after Thursday's tremor, but no damage was reported.

 

A tsunami alert was issued for a long stretch of Chile's coast but was later lifted, except for Easter Island, where it remained in effect.

 

The US Pacific Tsunami Warning Center said the aftershocks were too small to cause "a destructive widespread tsunami".

 

Mr Pinera said there had been "significant damage" in Rancagua, a city almost 100km (62 miles) south of the capital, which was close to the main tremor's epicentre, but there were no immediate reports of injuries.

 

The US Geological Survey initially estimated the largest aftershock's magnitude at 7.2, but later revised it down to 6.9. It was followed by more tremors, the biggest of which had a magnitude of 6.7.

 

'MASSIVE CHALLENGE'

 

The inauguration ceremony in the port city of Valparaiso, which houses the National Congress, was intended to be an austere affair.

 

The planned dinner was cancelled and the whole event scaled back out of respect for victims of the quake.

 

Ms Bachelet, who was constitutionally barred from seeking re-election, handed the red, white and blue presidential sash to Mr Pinera.

 

"I'm leaving office with sadness for the suffering of our people, but also with my head held high, satisfied with what we have accomplished," she said in her farewell address.

 

The leaders of Peru, Colombia, Argentina and Bolivia were among the dignitaries to attend the inauguration.

 

A 7.2 magnitude aftershock has sparked fears of another tsunami.

 

Seldom can an incoming president have faced such a massive and immediate challenge, says the BBC's Gideon Long in Santiago.

 

Many people have been made homeless by the quake, with about half a million homes destroyed.

 

BBC reader Ian Hutcheon, from San Vicente, 45km south of Rancagua, described Thursday's aftershock as "very severe".

 

"I was in a bank when it hit and there was mayhem, panic and chaos," he said.

 

BILLIONAIRE BUSINESSMAN

 

"We won't be the government of the earthquake, we'll be the government of reconstruction," Mr Pinera said recently.

 

Last month, Mr Pinera named his cabinet, leaving out any figures linked with the former military ruler, Augusto Pinochet.

 

In his election campaign, the 60-year-old the conservative leader said he would focus on boosting economic growth and producing jobs while continuing with the outgoing president's social policies.

 

Mr Pinera is one of the country's richest men.

 

He made his fortune introducing credit cards to Chile, then went on to buy a television channel, a stake in Chile's most successful football club, and put millions of dollars into other investments.

-------------------

 

DISASTER EXPERTS PRAISE CHILE QUAKE RESPONSE

 

(03/11/2010 | 09:06 AM - GMA News.TV)

 

SANTIAGO, Chile – President Michelle Bachelet leaves office Thursday with a chunk of her country in ruins — and her popularity in the clouds.

 

Despite complaints that aid was slow to reach the hungry and homeless, experts say Chile's response to one of history's most powerful earthquakes has been a model for disaster recovery.

 

At first, the problems were all too obvious: Chile's navy and emergency preparedness office failed to issue a tsunami warning that might have saved hundreds of lives after the Feb. 27 quake, and Bachelet didn't order soldiers to impose order in the streets until after looting had spun out of control.

 

But experts say other smart moves — like insisting that foreign help meet specific needs, quickly patching up roads and having the military handle logistics — made it possible to deliver 12,000 tons of relief in just 10 days.

 

And despite extensive damage to hospitals, few additional lives have been lost since the tsunami retreated, leaving at least 497 dead and hundreds missing.

 

Chile's critical north-south highway was restored the day after the quake, with thick metal plates covering cracks, dump-truck loads of gravel filling collapsed pavement and more than a dozen fallen pedestrian overpasses quickly pushed aside. The patchwork repairs soon enabled an aid convoy of 100 tractor-trailers to make the eight-hour journey south from the capital to the most damaged cities.

 

"We were where we needed to be immediately," the socialist president said in a Chilean TV interview ahead of Thursday's inauguration of conservative billionaire Sebastian Pinera.

 

It was frustrating to have to make decisions based on INCOMPLETE INFORMATION, Bachelet said: Seismographs were knocked offline when the power went out, and the navy gave MIXED SIGNALS ON THE TSUNAMI. She said there was no hint looting would soon begin when she toured the disaster area hours after the quake. Chile clearly needs to improve its emergency communications and warning systems, she said.

 

But veterans of other disasters have been impressed by Chile's response.

 

"There is nothing more frustrating than getting aid somewhere and not seeing it delivered to the people who need it. Here, there is no aid that sits anywhere. It hasn't collected any dust.

 

It's getting exactly to the people," said Col. Julio Lopez, who commands the US Air Force's 35th Expeditionary Airlift Squadron, which has been ferrying supplies and people in C-130 cargo planes between Chile's capital and Concepcion, the closest large city to the epicenter.

 

Ten days after the quake, more than 90 percent of homes in the disaster area have regular power and water and a half-million survivors are getting water trucked in. Food aid is flowing in huge cargo planes and military helicopters, navy ships and tractor-trailers.

 

Countless volunteers have turned out to help the 14,000 soldiers who stand guard and help deliver relief, and a national TELETHON raised $60 MILLION — enough to build SMALL EMERGENCY SHELTERS for most of the poorest survivors whose homes were destroyed.

 

The magnitude-8.8 earthquake that struck just off Chile's coast was more than 500 times more powerful than the 7.0 quake that devastated Haiti. It was so strong that it shifted the Earth's orbit and moved Concepcion three meters (10 feet) to the west, scientists say.

 

Yet Chile's infrastructure and modern buildings designed to withstand a magnitude-9 earthquake emerged largely intact. Chile had only a tiny fraction of Haiti's estimated 230,000 killed.

 

"The reality is far better than we originally feared," said Raul Rivera, chairman of the Innovation Forum, which promotes economic development in Chile.

 

Pinera has called for unity and solidarity — but has also sharply criticized the government response.

 

"When there is an earthquake of this magnitude — when one knows that it will interrupt basic services like power and water, and that it will generate fear, and also generate vandalism and looting — PUBLIC ORDER has to be guaranteed from the first day," Pinera told Radio ADN this week. "Here we lost a lot of time in establishing the state of catastrophe."

 

A poll sponsored by the conservative newspaper El Mercurio said 72 percent believe the government responded late and inefficiently to re-establish order, and 60 percent believe aid delivery has been too slow and inefficient. The survey of 600 adults in Santiago had a margin of error of 4 percentage points.

 

But a larger tracking poll done before and after the Feb. 27 earthquake said Bachelet's 84 percent approval rating hasn't been dented.

 

Most Chileans blame the navy and emergency managers for botching the tsunami warning, and while 59 percent disapprove of how Bachelet handled "delinquency" in the disaster, more than 90 percent still respect her and believe she cares about them, according to the Adimark/GfK survey of 1,100 people nationwide, which had an error margin of 3 percentage points.

 

The persistence of the criticism led Carmen Fernandez, director of the National Emergency Office, to resign Wednesday. The government previously removed Cmdr. Mariano Rojas as head of the navy's oceanographic service over its failure to issue a tsunami warning immediately after the quake.

 

Chileans might feel differently had the government not quickly overcome the kind of coordination problems that vexed responses to Hurricane Katrina in 2005 and Haiti's earthquake this year, Lopez said.

 

During KATRINA, it seemed like no one was in charge for the first nine days, creating CHAOTIC SITUATIONS that endangered lives, he said: "It was a free for all ... it was everyone wanting to help and no one directing traffic."

 

CHAOS also reigned initially in HAITI, where in the absence of a functioning government, hundreds of planes landed in the cramped Port-au-Prince airport with no clear plan for getting aid to survivors. Foreign NGOs competed for priority treatment, and badly needed food, water and medicine got stuck.

 

Bachelet, in contrast, insisted on a quick analysis of the disaster first. Then, within hours, she was asking other countries for field hospitals, satellite phones, floating bridges and dialysis centers — specialized equipment that complemented Chile's own rescue and relief effort.

 

"In this case you did see an effective and well-executed response," said Mark Ghilarducci, a 25-year disaster veteran who helped run California's emergency management office during the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake. "I've seen other governments take far longer, with far less coordination and communication."

 

"It's pretty phenomenal to have such a low number of deaths in such a large earthquake that was relatively such a direct hit," Ghilarducci added. "There was not a lot of waiting; there was a tremendous response immediately, search and rescue and fire outfits right on the spot. That was good.

 

"Even 36 hours starting to get the military in place, that's not a lot of time when we're talking about the magnitude of this particular kind of disaster." - AP

 

 

STRONG QUAKES TORMENT CHILE AS PRESIDENT SWORN IN

 

(3/12/2010 | 07:30 AM - GMA News.TV)

 

SANTIAGO, Chile – The earth shook and shook Thursday as dignitaries walked in for the swearing-in of Sebastian Pinera as Chile's president. It shook some more as they waited for him.

 

People in the balconies of the vast congressional hall in coastal Valparaiso shouted warnings as a massive light fixture rocked overhead, and heads of state nervously eyed the ceiling. But a steely calm prevailed, and Pinera strode in smiling.

 

The president and his ministers then quickly swore their oaths, and the audience of 2,000 headed for the exits and the hills, joining an evacution called out of concern that Thursday's repeated aftershocks would set off another tsunami.

 

Inauguration Day was peppered with more than a dozen significant aftershocks, amply demonstrating Pinera's challenges after last month's magnitude-8.8 quake, one of the biggest in modern history.

 

Chile's first elected right-wing president in 52 years won office promising to improve the economy. Now, he says he'll be the "reconstruction president." His advice to citizens: "Let's dry our tears and put our hands to work."

 

But relief efforts stalled Thursday as more than 10 earthquakes shook Chile in a span of six hours. The strongest, at 6.9, nearly matched the 7.0-magnitude quake that devastated Haiti on Jan. 12.

 

Pinera said there were no reports of more deaths, but a KEY HIGHWAY suffered more DAMAGE in the inland city of Rancagua, and VIOLENT WAVES hit the coastal towns of Pichilemu and Bucalemu, Interior Minister Rodrigo Hinzpeter said.

 

Pinera urged citizens to heed the Chilean navy's tsunami warning and seek higher ground. Then he made a show of normality, greeting other presidents for lunch at the Cerro Castillo summer palace, where he left them at the table and boarded a helicopter to tour disaster areas.

 

"How was your welcome, president?" Pinera asked Argentina's Cristina Fernandez. "Moving, moving!" she joked.

 

The inauguration had lasted just 30 minutes, marked by three of the aftershocks. One prompted Colombia's Alvaro Uribe to leave the hall for several minutes as an announcer appealed for calm. Outgoing President Michelle Bachelet sat unperturbed as a nearby flower arrangement rocked back and forth.

 

Chile doesn't allow immediate presidential re-elections, but Bachelet remains popular. She left the hall to loud applause and a shout of "Come back soon, presidenta." Earlier Thursday, when a reporter asked if she'll run again in four years, she said it's not the time for politics.

 

Pinera called on Chileans to dedicate themselves to "this colossal job of reconstructing our country, of rebuilding better than what we had before, not just to lift up our schools, our hospitals, our homes, but also to make them better, and also to lift up the soul of our country."

 

"I am sure that just as we have done so many times, the Chilean people will rise up to this challenge," he said.

 

The Feb. 27 earthquake — the fifth-strongest since 1900 — killed 497 identified victims and potentially hundreds of others, destroyed or heavily damaged at least 500,000 homes and broke apart highways and hospitals. Recovery costs could soar above $15 billion, including $5 billion for infrastructure alone.

 

Thursday's quakes terrified many who have been living in and around quake-weakened homes since last month's massive temblor. Tall buildings swayed and windows rattled in downtown Santiago. In Talca, supermarkets closed for fear of looting. And just before Pinera visited coastal Constitucion, survivors and volunteers building 60 emergency shelters fled uphill in panic.

 

The strongest of the aftershocks — magnitude 6.9 — was Chile's most powerful since Feb. 27, and occurred along the same fault line, said geophysicist Don Blakeman at the US Geological Survey in Golden, Colorado.

 

Chile's navy and emergency management office were much criticized for failing to issue a tsunami alert that might have saved hundreds of lives from the towering waves that followed the initial quake. This time, the alert went out — Pinera said an overabundance of caution was called for.

 

"Everything stopped — my meetings with business owners, work, life, everything has been paralyzed," said Mayor Gaston Saavedra of Talcahuano, where waves shoved huge shipping containers into downtown buildings last month.

 

Pinera repeatedly called for courage as he toured Constitucion, where he left 130 flowers along the riverbank for the dead and missing caught in the tsunami. He signed an order giving one-time cash handouts of $76 each to 4.2 million disaster survivors, and said he would send laws creating subsidies and tax-deductible donations to congress in the morning.

 

The billionaire investor, Harvard-trained economist and airline executive is known for his impatience with bureaucracy and ill-prepared aides. He quickly returned to Santiago, where he planned to speak from a balcony at the La Moneda presidential palace, and then work past midnight with his ministers.

 

Pinera had vowed to spend billions to make Chile "the best country in the world," accelerating economic growth, creating 1 million jobs and combatting crime while maintaining popular social programs that gave Bachelet 84 percent approval ratings.

 

His victory ended 20 years of center-left governments that followed Gen. Augusto Pinochet's dictatorship, and put Chile's business elite squarely back in power. But he lacks a legislative majority, and reconstruction will be very expensive.

 

Still, Chile's rainy-day fund has $11 billion in overseas liquid investments, and more than $3.5 billion in damaged property is not only insured, but reinsured abroad. "Because Chile is a country where markets work and people insure themselves, all of a sudden you have the equivalent of $3.5 billion in foreign aid coming in," said Raul Rivera, president of Chile's Innovation Forum. - AP

[nancyk58]

UPDATES OF THE SITUATION IN THE PHILIPPINES ON 12 MARCH 2010

 

PHIVOLCS: MILD EARTHQUAKE ROCKS MASBATE

 

(03/12/2010 | 09:01 AM - GMA News.TV)

 

A mild magnitude-3.6 quake rocked parts of Masbate province Thursday night, but state seismologists said there was no casualty or damage expected.

 

The Philippine Institute of Volcanology and Seismology said Friday the quake was recorded at 10:32 p.m. Thursday, and was tectonic in origin.

 

It traced the epicenter to 17 km southeast of Masbate town in Masbate province.

 

It expected no damage or aftershock from Thursday night's tremor. — RSJ, GMANews.TV

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UPDATE OF THE SITUATION IN HAITI on 12 march 2010

 

HAITI: KIDNAPPERS RELEASE 2 EUROPEAN AID WORKERS

 

(03/12/2010 | 11:07 AM - GMA News.TV)

 

PORT-AU-PRINCE, HAITI – Kidnappers have freed two Swiss women snatched off the streets of Haiti's capital and held for five days, officials said Thursday.

 

It is the first reported kidnapping since Haiti suffered a magnitude-7 earthquake with catastrophic damage on Jan. 12. More than 5,000 prisoners fled jails that collapsed or were damaged in the temblor. Only about 200 have been captured.

 

Doctors Without Borders confirmed the kidnapping. Agency spokesman Michel Peremans said the victims were released Wednesday night and are "in good health." He would not say if a ransom was paid.

 

Doctors Without Borders is one of hundreds of international aid agencies that have flooded into Haiti to help.

 

The Swiss aid workers were held during a weekend in which most of the thousands of US troops that had helped distribute aid and provide security following the quake were leaving the country.

 

A small number of troops — the US military has not said how many — have remained to help 10,000 Haitian police officers and 10,000 UN peacekeepers reassert control.

 

- AP

 

The entire article can be read in the HAITI THREADS and in the thread: Updates of the situation in Southeast Asia, Haiti and Chile.

 

Swedish SVT Text: HAITI WAS THE BREAKTHROUGH FOR SMS DONATIONS

The Suedes have donated more than 200m SEK (Swedish Kroner) corresponding to $28.5m to the earthquake victims in Haiti, and this disaster is a real breakthrough for SMS donations. "Dagens Nyheter" broadcasting the daily news has contacted 18 organizations which collected money for Haiti. Most of the organizations say that they received many donations. "Radiohjälpen" (translation: Radio Aid) received SEK 5.4 mio ($771,000) via SMS donations which is by far the largest sum of money collected via SMS. RED CROSS has collected the highest sum via SMS with 7.5m SEK (more than $1m).

 

Swedish SVT Text: THE UN HAS DIFFICULTIES IN GETTING THE PROMISED MONEY TO HAITI

In the days after the massive earthquake in HAITI on 12 January 2010 the UN launched an acute appeal for $562m from member countries. In February the appeal had increased to $1.46bn. The UN has received 49% of the funds needed for the entire year. The UN appeals for more resources and funds to the relief organizations.

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UPDATES OF THE SITUATION IN CHILE ON 12 MARCH 2010

 

German ARD Text: CHILE'S NEW PRESIDENT VISITS DISASTER AREA AFTER STRONG AFTERSHOCK

According to Chile's new president Sebastian Piñera, rebuilding will be his biggest and most difficult task. He visited the city of CONSTITUCION. He signed a draft bill regarding the distribution of credit notes to the needy. This was one of his pledges during his election campaign. Almost 2 weeks ago, at least 497 were killed in Chile due to the massive earthquake. Since then there have been 3 strong aftershocks.

 

Swedish SVT Text: THE NAVY IN CHILE LIFTED THE TSUNAMI ALERT

The tsunami alert issued by the navy on Thursday afternoon after 3 strong aftershocks had damaged central Chile at the same time as Sebastian Piñera was sworn in as president in Chile was lifted again. The city of Rancagua is reported to have been affected by "significant damage". The Chilean government was criticised for not having issued a tsunami alert in time. The tsunami after the strong earthquake on 27 February killed almost 500 people.

 

Swedish SVT Text: Chile's new president Sebastian Piñera pledged the equivalent of SEK 570m (about $81m) to children from poor families to support them after the quake. The draft bill will be introduced to the Congress very soon. At the same time IDB, the Inter-American Development Bank, pledged 480m dollar (corresponding to SEK 3.3bn) for reconstruction.