8.8-magnitude earthquake off the coast of Chile

http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20100227/ts ... 0227082015

It seems that Hawaii is now under a "Tsunami Advisory".
http://www.kitv.com/news/22690380/detail.html

Can only hope that all this is merely taking all precautions & that all will be well, however "Waves up to nearly 8 feet have been reported along the South American coastline.".

Tsunami warning for Pacific. Bondi Beach (all beaches on the East coast of Aust) closed and major surfing events post-poned. No news from NZ yet

The early morning news was that it had reached & passed Hawaii. By all accounts it was not a very serious event there - a couple of metres, but the coast there is used to worst than that on a daily basis. I gather that ALL the emergency plans had been put in place there anyway & it would have needed to be a very major sea rise indeed to cause loss of life. Congratulations to the planers & I am glad that the Tsunami part is not proving to be too serious.
I do gather that a number of people did lose their lives in Islands off the coast of South America because of the lack of any warning before the Tsunami hit them.
The loss of life in Chile appears to be in the low 100s. While this is still a disaster it is a testament to how Chile has conducted itself since the worlds' largest recorded earthquake hit them in 1960 - rated 9.6 on the scale.
Chile itself is often viewed as a very corrupt free state. The building regulations introduced after the 1960 disaster concentrated on ensuring the building of earth quake proof properties. This had a great deal of popular support as the devastation caused in 1960 made it abundantly clear which properties were resilient, which were not & what the consequences were. I understand that the building codes have been rigorously enforced from that day on.
If this situation had not been the case the the Chilean loss of life would undoubtedly been huge & the devastation horrific.
Although a direct comparison with say Haiti is probably not completely fair (I understand that the length & frequency of an earthquake can be responsible for as much of the damage as the severity of it) it is worth noting.
I would suggest that if Haiti is hit by a similar disaster some time after rebuilding has been completed then it would be driven back to square one.

Not a very good day for Chile but fortuately the event was a fizzer as far as this side of the Pacific is concerned.