Tuesday, March 2, 2010
"Hey, I think the building is moving."[ 692 ]
Survivor recounts Santiago's post-quake chaos
March 2, 2010 2:22 a.m. EST
Eduardo Ravani Jr., left, and his father Eduardo Sr. are shown together before the quake.
(CNN) -02-03-2010- Eduardo Ravani Jr. was photographing a wedding reception early Saturday at Las Terrazas dela Reina on the hills overlooking Santiago, Chile, when the party disc jockey told him: "Hey, I think the building is moving."
What started as a slow shake grew into a relentless rumble, knocking Ravani off his feet as screaming guests streamed outside. When Ravani made it outside, he saw five women had fainted to the ground. The bride and groom huddled in a tight embrace, the bride crying. Beyond, bright flashes leapt like lightning from exploding power transformers in the city below.
"It was like something you see in the movies -- one by one, each of the blocks of the city went dark," said the 36-year-old Santiago man, speaking by phone to CNN. "It felt like the shaking would never stop ... then all you heard were people crying and the sound of car alarms and house alarms."
The temblor lasted less than three minutes, but three days later the events of that day continue to reverberate for Ravani and his family, shaken both by daily aftershocks and widespread looting.
More than 700 people have died from the earthquake, and Chilean officials say the toll could climb. Areas of the country were reporting shortages of food and water, and looters roaming city streets, authorities said.
A precarious climate hung over Santiago immediately after the quake, Ravani said. He recounted the days immediately after the quake.
A purse snatcher tried to rob Ravani's wife on Sunday near their home and was stopped by passersby. "She's been terrified and is afraid to leave the house," he said.
Ravani saw a mob storm a quake-damaged store as the owner, "a 60-year-old grandmother," shouted and tried to get the looters to stop, he said.
The quake occurred on the last weekend of the summer holiday in the South American nation, when many Chileans were away on vacation.
"There are a lot of people who went to the beach and haven't been able to get back to their homes, so you hear of a lot of empty homes being broken into," Ravani said.
Ravani himself had little cash as automated teller machines failed through the weekend; when a neighborhood ATM began working again on Monday, he had to stand in line an hour to make a withdrawal.
"The main thing people are concerned about are shortages," Ravani said. He stood in line Monday at a grocery where a woman bought 20 pounds of spaghetti. Lines at his neighborhood gas station were 30 cars deep Monday.
"The government says there is no shortage of gas, but you still see people walking away, filling up plastic containers of gas," Ravani said. With the quake happening two weeks before the new president takes power, the credibility of government statements are sometimes called into question, he said.
"You hear the old government say one thing, the incoming president say something else," he said.
Still, Ravani -- a part-time photographer and full-time English instructor at the Wall Street Institute in Santiago -- considers himself lucky. In the moments after the quake, his thoughts turned to the safety of his wife, Dora, and their daughters Ayelet, 10, and Francesca, 8.
"After a few minutes, everyone collected themselves, and I drove home," he said. The typically 10-minute drive took nearly an hour as he drove through darkened streets, across electrical wires and debris, as the sirens of emergency vehicles filled the air.
When he got to his apartment, people were milling on the street, as car headlights and flashlights provided the only light. He searched for his family, but it was his daughters who first saw him in the strobe of a passing car and screamed, "Daddy, Daddy, Daddy!"
"They started crying hysterically," Ravani said. "My wife said they were mute after the earthquake occurred. They had never been through anything like that before."
On Monday, his daughters were supposed to return to school after their summer break. "Obviously, that didn't happen," he said.
"More than anything, I'm concerned about the safety of my family, and my family getting their life back on track."
Sunday, February 28, 2010
Tsunami waves after Chile quake[ 691 ]
Tsunami waves hit Pacific regions after Chile quake
SENDAI, Japan (Reuters) - Tsunami waves of up to 1.5 meters (5 feet) hit far-flung Pacific regions from the Russian far east and Japan to New Zealand's Chatham Islands on Sunday after a powerful earthquake struck Chile, but there were no reports of injuries or serious damage.
Hundreds of thousands of residents in Japan, New Zealand, the Philippines and Russia's Kamchatka were told to evacuate after one of the world's strongest quakes in a century hit Chile on Saturday, killing more than 300 people.
Japanese officials had warned that tsunami waves of 3 meters or more could strike the country's Pacific coast and ordered or advised around 630,000 households to evacuate.
"I feel the power of nature. The tsunami is coming from thousands of kilometers away," said Akio Yone, a 70-year-old retired fisherman, as he watched from high ground on a chilly, windy evening on the outskirts of Sendai, northern Japan.
The Japan Meteorological Agency (JMA) put the country's highest tsunami at 1.2 meters 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.
The JMA later downgraded its warning of a "major tsunami" to a tsunami of around 2 meters, but said residents should not let down their guard. "Carelessness could be the biggest enemy," Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama told reporters earlier in the day.
It was Japan's first major tsunami warning in 17 years and only the fourth since 1952, the JMA said.
Train services were halted in many areas along the Pacific coast, many highways were closed and there was minor flooding.
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.
HISTORY OF TSUNAMI
Japan is no stranger to tsunamis.
In 1896, a magnitude 8.5 earthquake and tsunami left more than 22,000 dead in northeastern Japan. Another of magnitude 8.1 hit the same region in 1933, killing 3,064.
In May 1960, a tsunami struck the coasts of Hokkaido and other northern Pacific coastal areas after an earthquake in Chile, killing around 140 people.
Since then, many harbors have had sea gates installed to try to protect from tsunami and storms.
Tadao Saito, 77, recalled the 1960 tsunami as he pointed to the sea from high ground in a coastal town near Sendai.
"At that time we could see the bottom of the sea," he said. "A lighthouse was pushed over, and lumber and barrels were washed away, and the wave was very fast. But compared with that, it is a small wave today."
The first waves to hit New Zealand were reported at the remote Chatham Islands, around 800 kilometers (500 miles) east of New Zealand, with surges of up to 1.5 meters measured, the Civil Defense 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 meters 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 Australia but there were no initial reports of damage. Officials issued an alert for most of the east coast and eastern parts of the island state of Tasmania, but said there were no concerns about major inundation.
The Philippines canceled a tsunami alert on the eastern seaboard after the threat dissipated.
Hawaii dodged serious damage on Saturday 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.
(Additional reporting by Yoko Kubota, Elaine Lies, Osamu Tsukimori, and Chisa Fujioka; writing by Linda Sieg; editing by Philippa Fletcher)
So Far... to Japan ?[ 690 ]
First Tsunami From Chile Quake Hits Japan, Initial Waves Small
Feb. 27: Japan Meteorological Agency's Yasuo Sekita discusses the impact of a tsunami triggered by an earthquake in Chile during a news conference.
TOKYO Saturday, February 27, 2010 
—
The first tsunami from the Chile quake hit Japan's outlying islands on Sunday, but the initial waves were small, though officials warned a bigger surge of water could reach the country's main islands.
Japan's Meteorological Agency said the first tsunami to reach Japan after the magnitude 8.8 quake off Chile was recorded in the Ogasawara islands. It was just 4 inches high. There were no reports of damage.
Japan put all of its eastern coastline on tsunami alert Sunday and ordered hundreds of thousands of residents in low-lying areas to seek higher ground as waves generated by an earthquake off Chile raced across the Pacific at hundreds of miles (kilometers) per hour.
It was the first such alert for Japan's coasts in almost 20 years
So far away ??? [ 689 ]
People evacuated from Russia Kuril Islands due to tsunami threat
04:58..28/02/2010
(RIA NOVOSTI)Residents of Kuril Islands, in Russia's Far East, are being evacuated due to the threat of tsunami roused by a quake in Chile, a spokesman for the local administration said.
He said that the expected height of waves to hit the regional coast is some 2 meters (6.6 feet).
"The inland of the North Kuril Islands is not subjected to the threat," he said.
The tremor occurred some 89 kilometers (55.3 miles) to the north of Chile's second largest city Concepcion, some 341 kilometers (212 miles) from the capital Santiago.
YUZHNO-SAKHALINSK, February 28 (RIA Novosti)
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