Dear readers,

As you might have seen on the news, an 8.5 earthquake hit Chile on Saturday at 3:30AM.

The country was seriously affected, specially in the southern part. A 15 story tall building (pictured above) fell to one side,highways collapsed,  several old buildings collapsed, and even  new buildings collapsed. It could have been way worse, if compared to Haiti (which was 7.something). This was due to the country’s seismic design code, recognized as one of the best in the world. So, the reason behind recent buildings collapsing seems to be bad construction, not design (contractors fault – NOT trying to point fingers, I just want to make clear that the code has been recognized as one of the best).

As I said, the southern part was heavily affected due to the fact that constructions were old, and a lot of them were built with rammed earth in rural towns. Also a tsunami that came a few hours after swiped several costal towns. 706 deaths were informed a few hours ago.

I´m happy to inform that our collaborators from Chile are ok.

Our friends from Plataforma Arquitectura are reporting about earthquake from an architectural point of view in Spanish. They are also reuniting architects, working with the local architecture institute, schools and government to prepare a unified architecture network of relief. Architecture for Humanity will provide technical support (as they are heavily working in Haiti this days).

We are going to keep you informed about this in case they need your help.