Chile's Situation

As Haiti's news are moving aside, Chile now takes the hotspot in the media by the recent earthquake that striked off the coast of the Maule Region with a maginitude of 8.8 and lasting 3 minutes. I remembered that at first the president, Michelle Bachelet didn't want to ask for help because they thought the catastrophe wasn't so big or just to avoid the panick on people, since the earthquake of Haiti was still on the news. Now, I ask to myself if this is a normal situation, that 2 earthquakes strike in such a small period of time? Well, it's normal for people to think that it was a movement of the tectonic plates, others may say it's global warming, or just the end of the world; however, we have to move to the facts and the desperate situation Chile is going on. On March 4, the president said that Chile will need international loans in order to rebuild the damaging parts in 3 or 4 years. On the other hand, Chile's economic stability of the last years will help the get off this situation more quickly because they have a reserve of cash of about $11 billion. The government of Chile is one of the few governments form Latin America that can be trully admired. Chile has an average steady growth of 4%, which makes this country's economy maintain balance even after a catastrophe passed by. I never thought of Chile as a great country until I found this great news about them. There's a little damage that some cities and ports suffered lowering the economic growth from 5.4% to 5.0%, but after all what happened I think is great news that Chile is standing!

On the other hand, Chile received a visit form the president of the United Nations, Ban Ki-moon, which state that they will totally help Chile to recover, as Chile also worked when Haiti needed help. I think that is very important to help nations in need because you never know when a natural disaster can hit your country, as it happened to Chile. Besides their economic stability, people are still in need of help such as hospitals, clean water, bridges, etc. as people need to move from dangerous areas and avoid illnesses. I'm conscious that Chile needs all the help possible, and I'm glad that some of my classmates are organizing a campaign to collect cans of food for Chile.

The quake in Chilean economy

Don’t you find it weird that the Haitian earthquake got so much more press than the Chilean earthquake? Haven’t you realized how the Haitian earthquake was everywhere in the news and Chile seems to be unimportant? Well, that is mainly because of the vast differences between these two countries’ economies. The earthquake in Chile was stronger than the one in Haiti, yet the damages and the aftermath of the Haitian earthquake seem to be worse. Chile has a pretty good economy; it is in fact the 46^th richest country in the world. The South American country was much more prepared in its infrastructure to a catastrophe of this magnitude, whereas the Caribbean country is one of the poorest countries in the world and is not prepared to receive a natural disaster of this level.

Chile has a very stable economy and is prepared to affront the damages caused by the earthquake. Not without effort though! The catastrophe caused $30 billion in destruction and damages. Most likely if they invest their money properly they can rebound to how they were before. They are also recovering from recession since last year and their economy is expected to expand 5%. The Chileans can have a very great reserve of copper which they base their economy on, and if managed well they would be right back at where they were before the earthquake and before recession or even go higher on the world wide scale.

Haiti does not have such a good economy and that is why the world has aided them so much. Chile does not necessarily need the support that is being offered to them (which is much less than the support offered to Haiti), but help is always welcome. Even if the country is prepared to receive such a hit to their economy that doesn’t mean that the earthquake does not pose a setback for Chile; the Chilean economy would have grown more if it hadn’t been affected by this terrible and very sad natural disaster. And as we now know, the losses are not only social, but also economic.