Saturday’s massive earthquake off the coast of Chile slammed Santiago, the capital, and nearby regions. Buildings were leveled and official reports place the death toll at 708, though that’s likely to climb. Although the Chilean event was many times more severe than last month’s quake in Haiti, the sturdier infrastructure in Chile offered residents far more protection.
I’d written recently (”Out of Africa, Help for Haiti”) about an open-source tech platform developed in Kenya called Ushahidi which enables people in crisis-affected areas to text their location and make urgent requests or provide assistance for those needing it. Ushahidi’s disaster relief system is being used in the aftermath of Haiti’s quake, and now it’s being used to provide vital disaster relief in Chile.
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