March 4th, 2010

Chile Earthquake Earth’s Axis and San Jose Earthquake.  There’s a whole lot of shaking going on, and it didn’t start with Chile.  In January, Haiti had a big earthquake around the capital of Port au Prince, then last Friday there was a 7.0 quake off of Japan.  Saturday the big one hit – the 8.8 mega quake in Chile.

The quake shifted the earth of its axis by about 3 inches, shortening our days by 1.26 mega seconds.  In addition, the quake set off a chain of strong aftershocks that are still being felt days later.

Today there was an earthquake in San Jose. It was a minor earthquake, registering at 3.2 on the Richter scale, but it was still another earthquake nonetheless.  There were no losses and no casualties experienced with today’s quake.

California is prepared for minor quakes – but no one was prepared for what happened in Chile. In fact, the effects of the major quake were felt all the way in Hawaii where a relatively minor tsunami hit.

There’s billions of dollars in insured losses, over a million people that are displaced and a death toll of ove r 800.  We are still waiting for the aftershocks to stop, at which case everyone can begin to rebuild.