Now it is interesting. The last time there was a major disaster, Haiti, I remarked on the lack of comment on a event which didn't affect the US and guess what? Several days after another such event, the Chile earthquake and tsunami, not a peek out of you. Is there an international news blackout in the US? Or are you so intraspective that nothing outside gets in. Is there something important happening there? Or are you such olympic fanatics that all else goes unnoticed?

What's to say you might ask? Well for one I think it is good that there is a nation on the South American continent that is capable of responding to a disaster of this magniture internally. I also want to say I haven't heard anyone baying for blood over poor building standards as was so in Haiti. It is as if we know that Chile would be different even though buildings did not withstand the shocks and fell down nevertheless. Perhaps it is the small body count.

In the old quarters of towns in Chile the buildings were destroyed. Newer construction was built to code . Thus the lower body count.

The permanent government survives and is to a degree reestablishing order. It is in control of the country and both civil order and the economy ;although strained ,has survived .
The US is generously complying with aid requests by the government .

What else is there to say ? Oh yes ;my thoughts and prayers are with the people .

Why do you use natural disaster to take pot shots at Americans ?

Tom I am just wondering why it is that the focus on this "board" is so inward looking? This isn't so much a pot shot at the US but at the americans who inhabit this place. I expect that it extends beyond to a national characteristic. I look at our own media here and sometimes the local focus is overwelhming but we do get beyond that

Yes governments around the world have responded with offers of assistance, it is as it should be.

In Chile, perhaps what amazed me is that despite the frequent history of quakes and good building codes there was wide spread damage of what were obviously modern structures. It seems that to protect from large quakes we have to go a whole lot further than we have gone before. I also wonder what this means for places which are more likely to be affected, i.e. California, Japan. Is good building the answer?

Chile and Haiti have been on my mind as well as many other issues. However ;there is limitted time to post and respond so I post on issues that concern me most and am more than happy to respond to other's issues.

The majority of deaths and injuries from earthquakes are caused by the damage or collapse of buildings and other structures.

42 people died in the 7.1 rickter scale (roughly the same magnitude of the Haiti quake)San Fransisco /Oakland area 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake .Most of those who died were killed on a double decker highway section that was constructed on sand and gravel deposits and soft mud.Had the designers of the highway done their due dilligence the odds are the structure would've held.

The quake in Chile was even more powerful and yet it caused much less damage.

The Chilean Seismic Code was adopted in 1972(updated twice 1993 and 1996)... so much of the infrastucture in the country was built to code.

But a 8+ shock is a powerful event and even with a good “strong columns weak beam” system (rebar),the forces of nature are still humbling .

Here is something to consider and generate controversy.

Back in the 1950's a bunch of Chilean economic students studied under Milton Friedman and his Chicago School of Economics . They then went home and became the economic professors of their country.

Jumpstart to the early 1970s. Chile elected a communist President Salvador Allende who began to put in communist policies. He was ousted in a coup by the bloody dictator Augusto Pinochet.

Now I am not here to defend Pinochet's reign of terror . But Milton Friedman did visit the country 2 years after the coup and convinced Pinochet on the value of a free market economy over the traditional South American state managed /owned economy.Pinochet adopted Friedman's recommendations ,and hired the economists trained in Chicago.As a result ,Chile became probably the most prosperous nation in South America. This in turn gave them the means to build a more solid infrastructure. Code was not only put in place ;but the relative lack of corruption enabled strict enforcement.
As a bonus; not only did the adoption of free market policies improved the economy ,but it also contributed to the end of Pinochet's rule and the transition to a democratic government .

`I won't draw the inference that a market economy doesn't support a dictatorship or socialism because of what we see in China and there is a great deal of building happening there but I cannot comment on code. Obviously there were some problems made apparent in their earthquake which may be linked to corruption.

There is little doubt that prosperity and the standards of construction are linked and most certainly the lack of corruption is a paramount factor. I also think the Chilean terrain saved many from the tsunami

This is not entirely accurate as far as the 1989 quake goes. There were shortcomings in the pilons holding up that freeway. Also the soil under it was subject to liquification. That area shook because it was a rolling quake and it flapped that section of freeway simaler to a bedsheet being hung in the wind. The saving grace of the time was the world series. Had it not been for that the death toll could have been much higher. Also that quake was located many miles from San Francisco and Oakland. Had it been closer to it then the devistation would have been multiplied by the hundreds.

OK then a similar example would be the 1995 Kobe earth quake . Again that one was more intense that the Haiti quake ,hit a city of 1.5 million people ,but only 6,400 people . The damage was mitigated by the structural makeup of the city.

Clete ,the Chinese quake 2008 is a great example. Clearly they have the resources to build properly .But they built Potamkin villages throughout the country side... especially their schools.
China's quake: Why did so many schools collapse? / The Christian Science Monitor - CSMonitor.com

This is the difference between then and now.

http://www.thedailyinquirer.net/chil...hawaii/0210145

I think we need to understand there have been different stages of development in China and that there is a strong culture of localism, giving lip service to directions from the capital. So the Administration can direct certain standards but it may take many years for it to be implemented. What I saw in reports from there is the use of sub standard materials, profiteering and corruption