Latest on the Chile Earthquake

As this USGS map shows, the main quake has already seen plenty of aftershocks.

This corner of cyberspace is not going to keep up a running commentary on the Chile quake today, as world media will do all that and a lot more. This post is a simple compilation of what we know so far.

• The area hit is 325km South of the capital, Santiago at 3:34am local time (06:34 GMT) The epicentre is being placed at Bio Bio. Here's the paste from the USGS report for distances:

100 km (60 miles) NNW of Chillan, Chile
105 km (65 miles) WSW of Talca, Chile
115 km (70 miles) NNE of Concepcion, Chile
325 km (200 miles) SW of SANTIAGO, Chile

• Magnitude is noted at 8.8. On the Richter scale it's being put at 8.5. That is a very, very big quake by anyone's standards. Depth is put at 35km, quite shallow and therefore even more damaging.
  

• President Bachelet has confirmed 78 deaths as a preliminary figure and has said they expect "many more". She has overflown the region this morning. The death toll, fortuately, will not reach Haitian standards, however. Firstly the epicentre area is not densely populated and secondly Chilean buildings are normally built with earthquakes in mind and are far more resistant than the pancaked constructions of Port Au Prince.
  

• It was big enough to cause some structural damage in the capital, Santiago (fissuring of buildings being reported, but no collapses) and also general panic (though apparently no casualities).

• There was a large Tsunami and initial reports say some of the Chilean offshore islands (very sparsely populated) were affected. However the Tsunami alert for the Chile/Peru coast has now been dropped. The tsunami is rolling out to sea and may affect Easter Island, some 3,500km off the coaast of Chile. Partial or full evacuation is being organised right now.

• There have already been aftershocks on this one and you can bet the house on plenty more to come.

• Anglo has shut down operations at two of its mines in the region, apparently due to lack of power supply than any major damage. Reuters report here. Codelco is "checking for damage" at its local area mines, including the big El Teniente. Here's the Reuters page for that one (the links are likely to be updated through the day if Reuters works in its normal way). The big big mines in the North of Chile have not been affected (La Escondida, Atacama region mines etc).

Update (the only one): Here's a photo of a collapsed bridge in concepción. That's 115km (70 miles) from the epicentre, so it's safe to say you really, really didn't want to be standing on top of exactly where it happened.