Recently in Chile Category

A major aftershock shook central Chile today, striking as inaugural ceremonies for Chile's president-elect, Sebastián Piñera, were under way in Valparaiso. more at the NYT

"...The least apocalyptic of geologists think of Chile not as a country of the mainland, but as a cornice of the Andes in a misty sea, and believe that the whole of its national territory is condemned to disappear in some future cataclysm"

Find the answer here in a cracking piece by Christopher Hitchens (or find more clues after the jump)

Chile's second city, Concepcion under curfew until midday (1500 GMT) 

Troops struggle to contain looting after the earthquake

Government seeking international help

Troops arrested dozens of people after looters fought over goods and set fire to a department store. The authorities are now setting up an air bridge to bring aid from the capital, Santiago, to Concepcion more rapidly.

Chile's president said the earthquake death toll had reached 708 and ordered soldiers into the worst-affected areas to halt looting. More than 2 million people in Chile have been displaced by Saturday's 8.8-magnitude earthquake and more nerves were rattled today by strong aftershocks. A wide swathe of the country has been reduced to rubble causing hundreds of thousands to spend their first night outdoors. President Michelle Bachelet called the damage caused by the magnitude-8.8 quake " an emergency unparalleled in the history of Chile" and suggested the death toll would likely spiral higher in the days ahead. The earthquake was much stronger than the 7.0-magnitude quake that devastated Haiti six weeks ago, but the damage was less because Chile has strict building regulations to protect against quakes.

The tsunami alert was canceled for the Pacific yesterday after the evacuation of nearly 100,000 people in numerous islands in the wake of Chile's devastating earthquake.
 'I think we've dodged a bullet,' one official said in Hawaii.

However Japan warned on Sunday that its northern Pacific coast faced a possible tsunami of 3 meters (10 ft) or more and ordered thousands of coastal residents to evacuate to higher ground, after a massive earthquake in Chile.

The tsunami could hit northern areas of Japan's main island of Honshu around 1 p.m. (11 p.m. EST), the Japan Meteorological Agency (JMA) said.

The affected coast, where around 140 people died in a previous tsunami 50 years ago, has many small harbors that will concentrate the force of a tsunami.