by Patrick Appel
Robert Mackey is live-blogging. A tsunami is expected to hit Hawaii at 11:19 am local time, 4.19 pm EST (via Insta). Blake Hounshell's analysis:
[O]ne thing is already clear: Chile was well prepared for this disaster, having been struck by 13 large earthquakes since 1973. The biggest seismic event in recorded history was in Chile, a 9.5-magnitude quake in 1960. While the death toll will inevitably go up, and hundreds of millions of dollars in property damage are likely, the country seems very resilient.
Comparisons to Haiti, whose earthquake was much smaller but several orders of magnitude more deadly, are inevitable. But not only was Chile far better prepared, it is also a vastly more developed country, one that just joined the OECD and has a highly competent government, so it's no surprise that it would be able to weather this disaster.