The 8.8 quake that hit Chile on Saturday was the fifth strongest on record since 1900. Chile was also the site of the strongest earthquake ever recorded, a 9.5 monster along the same fault line in 1960. [link]
TIME Magazine has a theory that’s so awesome, they wouldn’t want to invalidate it by thinking. The reason the Haiti earthquake was so terrible and the Chilean earthquake so less terrible, they say, is because of corruption:
In recent decades, Chile has mandated earthquake-proofing for new structures, requiring that materials like rubber and features like counterweights be built into the architectural designs to allow buildings to bend and sway rather than break during temblors. Haiti, by contrast, lets its buildings rise with little if any input from engineers and plenty of bribes to so-called government inspectors. Structures have scant reinforcement and are often set on weak foundations. That’s why 13 of 15 federal ministry buildings pancaked in the Jan. 12 earthquake — and why, in 2008, 91 students and teachers died when their school in a Port-au-Prince suburb collapsed. The school’s owner was convicted of involuntary manslaughter after admitting he barely even used mortar to hold its concrete blocks together.
Sounds great! Straight-forward! Cue the public policy admonishments for the administration of aid money to a country full of thieves! Because there couldn’t be another side to this. Could there?
To be fair, Haiti has had far less experience with earthquakes, and therefore earthquake preparedness, than Chile has. (Before Jan. 12, the last major quake to hit Port-au-Prince was in 1751.)
OK, so you’re the poorest country in the world, haven’t had a major earthquake in 260 years, and somehow you’re supposed to enforce construction codes that require buildings to come with counterweights. You know, just in case.
Yeah, we can totally blame the Haitians for this one.
The mayor of Concepción, Chile, the city hardest-hit by yesterday’s earthquake, is asking for the military to help control looting. “Sailors and soldiers are needed in the street, because this is chaos.” [link]
The Photos: The Boston Globe‘s “The Big Picture” feature is characteristically awesome and the best place I’ve found to view the best photos of the Chilean earthquake.
The Numbers: The earthquake was 8.8 on the Richter scale, 500 times more powerful than the Haiti quake. The death toll is at 708 and rising. Officials say 2 million people have been affected and half a million homes are damaged.
The Science: From the New York Times:
Earthquake experts said the strains built up by that movement, plus the stresses added along the fault zone by the 1960 quake, led to the rupture on Saturday along what is estimated to be about 400 miles of the zone, at a depth of about 22 miles under the sea floor.
The Maps: Also from the New York Times. A series of very good illustrations showing where the earthquake happened and what it affected.
The Response: Looting has broken out in some of the hardest-hit areas. The government has declared the middle section of the country a “catastrophe zone.”
The Markets: Several copper mines stopped operating, but the closures are supposedly only temporary. Copper accounted for half of Chile’s $53 billion in exports last year.
TV Chile was down yesterday, but is up and live streaming on UStream.tv today, with 24-hour coverage of the effects of yesterday’s earthquake. They’ve also got a live Twitter feed up and blazing, which is basically, well, pretty useless. [link]
A huge earthquake rocked Chile this morning. At 8.8 on the Richter scale, some experts are saying it was a thousand hundred times more powerful than the earthquake in Haiti. Of course, Chile was significantly more prepared than Haiti. Interior Minister Edumndo Pérez Yoma is on TV Chile right now saying 82 people died in the quake, which doesn’t sound bad, but it’s almost certain to go up.
The greatest damage looks to have been to infrastructure. Several large bridges collapsed, but fortunately, since the earthquake took place around 3 a.m., it doesn’t look like many drivers where on the bridges at the moment of the earthquake.
Chile was also the site of the most powerful earthquake ever recorded, in 1960. The Valdivia earthquake measured 9.5 on the Richter scale.
Salon has a post up about the Chilean salmon die-off. Quote: _sarcasm_”Who could have predicted that the mass forced farming of an exotic fish to please the Wal-Mart low-price palate would result in a horrific virus-borne plague of anemia?”_/sarcasm_ [link]
Salmon is going to get expensive thanks to a disease outbreak that is devastating Chile’s salmon industry. Output has dropped 75% over the last two years, and wholesale prices are up 20%. Critics say Chilean fish farms were too crowded.
Divesting.
Here’s a nice problem to have: You’re the third richest man in Chile, and then you get elected president. How, oh how, will you possibly avoid conflicts of interest? The man confronted with this agonizing real-life dilemma is Sebastian Piñera, who is a billionaire.
Piñera was elected Chile’s new president last month, and now he’s got to figure out what to do with his vast, diversified business holdings before he gets sworn in on March 11.
Wrote the Financial Times:
The silver-haired magnate, who introduced credit cards into Chile and built a reputed $1.2bn fortune with assets including interests in flagship airline Lan, a television channel and Chile’s most popular football team, has already put some money into blind trusts to head off conflict of interest charges.
The latest is that today, he committed to selling off his 26% stake in Lan, part or all of which will be picked up by the Cueto family, according to Reuters.
The Nation has a long, wonky, wonderful article on Mexican maize cultivation, the effects of NAFTA, and the dangers of genetically-modified seeds. Author Peter Canby backs up his excellent writing with piles and piles of meticulous research. Not to be missed. [link, via SM] (Image from Joel Penner.)
Cuban dissident Guillermo Farinas ended his hunger strike yesterday after 134 days. Farinas decided to end his strike after the Cuban government said it would release political prisoners rounded up in the "Black Spring" crackdown of 2003. Get well soon. [link]
The Uruguayan selection, which has made it to the quarter finals of the World Cup, just received a shipment of half a ton of fine cuts of beef for the mother of all asados in preparation for a contest against Ghana on Friday: "450 kilos of lomo, 200 of entrecot, 75 of vacío, 75 of colita de cuadril, 150 of ojo de bife and 50 kg of picaña." [link]
Hitmen have assassinated the PRI candidate for governor of Tamaulipas State, Rodolfo Torre Cantú. Torre was gunned down along with six others at about 10:30 this morning on a highway on the way to a campaign event. Drug mafias are assumed to be responsible. [link]
From the days when coups were something of a regional sport, new documents detail a famous British ballerina's role in a plot to topple the government of Panama. The plan was to use her yacht to gather men and arms, then "land somewhere and collect in the hills." It didn't work. [link]
Mexico's Attorney General's Office has posted on its web site irrefutable evidence that gold-plated AR-15s and diamond-studded pistol grips are not nearly as cool-looking as they sound. The deadly knick-knack collection is said to belong to Valencia Cartel leader El Lobo. [link]
Two Brazilian ranchers were sentenced to 30 years in prison apiece for ordering the killing of an environmentalist nun: "Prosecutors said the pair offered to pay a gunman $25,000 to kill the 73-year-old [Dorothy] Stang because she had prevented them from stealing a piece of land that the government had granted to a group of poor farmers." [link]
This video of a kidnapping and car chase in Mexico is notable mainly for the bad-assitude of the TV journalists who were on this like white on rice. Well done, gentlemen.
The Economist takes a peak at the Mockus phenomenon in Colombia: "His moustacheless beard gives him the air of a Baltic pastor... He is financing his campaign with a bank overdraft. His supporters rely on Facebook and make their own posters; street vendors sell unofficial campaign T-shirts." [link]
Some cruise lines will cease traveling to Antarctica after this cruise season, as a ban on the use and carriage of heavy fuel oil goes into effect next year. The ban came after a 2007 incident when a Gap Adventures ship got punctured by ice and sank, causing a mess. [link]
Chile