What's happening?

Haiti

Spain

México

Solomon Islands

Argentina

Chile

India

Afghanistan

Papua New Guinea

Kyrgyzstan

Tonga

Tanzania

Indonesia

China

Alaska

Russia

United States

This is list of places were in the last 7 days they have been registered earthquakes and repetitions of 4.5 degrees and up. The list looks like if it would never end and it is getting me worried. Before the present year they have never registered so much earthquakes of these intensities. The consequences of these are terrible.

Lots of people have died, some other are in danger and in extreme conditions. Help and support from countries have been arriving to those countries that have been affected by Mother Nature. But, won't there be a point were getting help from other countries will be almost impossible I know that there are lots of countries in the world, but those countries that are able to make big donations are also being affected and what will happen to the needing people when they stop receiving help?. I just hope we never get to that point because I don't even want to think in the consequences, they should be terrible.

Could all these earthquakes be a consequence from global warming or are they just part of a natural cycle of planet earth I really don't know, and right know all I can think is when will they stop. I want them to end now before they cause more damage and worst things or before the people I know and love end harmed.

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.

Another Earthquake!

More than 708 people died in Chile, this number can increase, because of the earthquake of 8, 8 degrees that occurred last Saturday. First, it was informed that there were only 214 victims but now are even more!

This earthquake provokes the lost of a lot of houses and hospitals, but not only that also make a tsunami that is along the Pacific Ocean. According to Sergio Barrientos, this earthquake was 50 times more tan the one of Haiti.

The authorities said that some constitutional rights can be restricted like the one of circulation or merchandise transport, so this can prevent more accidents. This earthquake provokes a lot of diseases. The mandatory said that they will use all the public web of health so they can take care of patients in risk, but also there are transport from destroyed hospitals to another’s.

The head of state said that they will found other solutions like campaign hospitals but also other local solutions that can be implanted in a medium term.

In infrastructure, they decide to establish emergency solutions, like the opening of alternative roads to the roads of pavement that are broken. The mayor problem is electricity; they need to restore electricity as fast as possible.

I think that all the people of Chile need to be responsible and patient, so they can’t prevent more accidents and problems. Also we need to help this country that is suffering a big natural disaster with a lot damages.
Like we did with Haiti being humble with this entire country that need us. Just imagine that you are suffering this! We need to help, whenever and wherever we can. They need us and we have all the capacities to help them.

Our home: Earth

Yesterday another natural disaster occurred in America! Chile suffered an earthquake of 8.8 in the Richter scale, and it had 90 replicas and one of them of 6.2 in the Richter scale. At the moment there had being registered 708 deaths.

We know that Chile is in seismic zone as Mexico City and humans can’t control when it occurs one. But maybe all of us are responsible for some of the natural disasters that had been occurring in the past years. I think this because we don’t care about Earth, and we are damaging it more every time. We are contaminating ocean, air, and land; we are overexploiting our resources; we are deforesting; we are not recycling. So the earth is reacting to all the changes we have made.

There have being ecological campaigns but they include just a small percentage of the human population. If every person could join them, we could avoid problems, and maybe reduce global warming. We should all get involved so we can have a better home called Earth!

Still A Lot To Do

After several days of the Haiti Earthquake, it seems that there is still big problems going on that city. According to a recent new I read, Bill Clinton stayed that there is a lot of people that still need help. Giving a hand to those people is still very difficult because of the lack of organization. Mr. Clinton visited Port-du-Prince to "try to identify the things that aren't being done and need to be speeded up and fill thos blanks". I think that this man is doing a great humanitary job because is total chaos in Haiti. There are still people sleeping in the streets and lacking of a good health care system. According to the article too, there is about 1 million people that need aid. I hope that countries like ours could do more to help this poor country. Sadly, some news like the one of Cabaña's shot is taking away the spotlight of more important and urgent issues. After the magnitude 7.0 earthquake, officals said that 212,000 people died. Why do people are more impacted when one "celebrity" is shot than when a group of people is killed? Don't they deserve the attention because they aren't famous? They are humans, just like us. About 315 markeshift were installed around the city. It's sad to hear that these people who once have a home, lost it all. There are about 16 main distribution food centers around the country. However the lack of security in this place made difficult for person to obtain help. Some people asaulted trailers packed with food and water. This made me think that the situation over there is chaotic, like the survival of the fittest. Moral ethic values are on the floor. Another question that popped in my head is, do morals and ethics are completely forgotten in situations like this? I mean we can study the theory and applied it in some aspects of our life, but if a great natural disaster like this one happen in our city, will we lost all our sanity and just follow our instinct? Desperate situtations like this one is a clear example that when you live a tragedy personally it is a whole different world.

UNICEF and DIF's in Haiti

Recently, with the natural disaster that took place in Haiti, many people started to adopt children in Haiti, but is this correct?

Accordig to UNICEF and DIF (Mexico), people must wait. These institutions recognize that adpoting a child is a very noble action, but we must look forward to their well being before anything. These children have been through many awful things; they probably lost their parents, siblings, school and home. They are still in shock. So, UNICEF and DIF agree that first of all, they must be taken to a safe place, with food, clothes, vaccines or any other thing needed. It is necessary to put their rights above all. Moreover, adoption processes cannot be taken as regular since people who do this and their bulidings are not available, and this can lead to children trade and make the situation worse. Taking the children will not help, because many still have parents who are looking for them.

If people really want to help, they can provide with food, clothes and money, but adopting a children, is not a good option yet. We must keep in mind that these children are still going through a hard situation and that it is not fair to just take them away.