Many more at The Denver Post
Update: from anonymous in comments:
The bldg. in that image was practically brand new, less than six months old and was only partially occupied.
The devastation is terrible.
While watching televised reports anticipating the arrival of the tsunami on Saturday around 4:05 pm, I kept wondering why there were no reports of the tsunami off the extended coast nearer the epicenter.
For hours, as if spectators at a sporting event, newscasters 'talked' endlessly about Long Beach in CA and each of the Hawaiian islands.
The devastation occurred in the southern hemisphere but the 'me' generation couldn't be bothered with that.
Pathetic.
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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.
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."
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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.
---------------
chaos after Chile quake (video)
Aid Needed in hardest hit parts of Chile, video
Curfew as looters roam Chile streets
Pray.
----------------
NASA: Quake Shifted Earth's Axis, Shortened Day
8 comments:
The bldg. in that image was practically brand new, less than six months old and was only partially occupied.
The devastation is terrible.
While watching televised reports anticipating the arrival of the tsunami on Saturday around 4:05 pm, I kept wondering why there were no reports of the tsunami off the extended coast nearer the epicenter.
For hours, as if spectators at a sporting event, newscasters 'talked' endlessly about Long Beach in CA and each of the Hawaiian islands.
The devastation occurred in the southern hemisphere but the 'me' generation couldn't be bothered with that.
Pathetic.
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.
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."
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.
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.
chaos after Chile quake (video)
Aid Needed in hardest hit parts of Chile, video
Curfew as looters roam Chile streets
Pray.
NASA: Quake Shifted Earth's Axis, Shortened Day AOL News
Anon -- thank you for the info and links. I've added all to the front of this post.
- just a comment on the building shown in the photo -
While I can't say much about the quality of its foundation, the building itself appears to be very well constructed. Imagine being trapped inside a structure like that, in the jittering chaos, and suddenly realizing that it has leaned a bit beyond its swaying point of no return.
I believe my first thought (if I was lucky enough to not be in the process of being crushed against the wall by all my furiture and appliances) would be something like: Oh shit, I'm going to be ground to a pulp in a dusty mound of bricks, mortar, and twisted rebar.
It certainly would NOT have been: Oh well, the building is probably going to just topple over on its side and snap into two fairly intact sections.
I guess quality construction really is the salient factor when it comes to limiting the death toll in these powerful seismic events.
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