There are 13 active SOS Children's Villages in Chile as well as kindergartens, youth facilities, and counseling centers. No injuries of children or staff have been reported.

March 1, 2010: An emergency unlike any in Chile's history. That's what the Andean nation's president, Michelle Bachelet, called the destruction left by the 8.8 earthquake that hit Chile in the early morning of Saturday, February 27. As of Monday morning, the death toll from the quake stood at 708. That figure is expected to rise. Authorities aren't expected to have a clear picture of the scale of devastation for another few days.

The quake is Chile's largest in 50 years. Its epicenter was 200 miles southwest of Santiago and 70 miles from Concepcion, the country's second largest city.

The earthquake, followed by a terrifying series of aftershocks, took down homes, power lines, highways, and bridges across a vast swath of the Andean nation. Among key bridges that have fallen are several along Chile's main north-south highway, Route 5.

In towns along the coast, high waves swallowed homes, spitting boats onto land next to overturned cars. With some hospital structures damaged or unsafe, President Bachelet announced that the military would set up field hospitals to treat quake victims. Troops have also been deployed to maintain order. Hungry and thirsty people are looting supermarkets.

SOS Children's Village On Ground to Help Chile's Children and Families

To people living in countries that rarely experience earthquakes, such disasters can seem abstract. But their human toll is devastating. Twenty-four-year-old Lurde Margarita Arias Dias and her baby, immigrants from Peru, died when their Santiago home collapsed around them. Carrying her daughter in her arms, the young mother raced for safety at the first sign of the quake. According to her husband, they were buried in rubble before he could reach them.

SOS Children's Villages has many years of experience dealing with the very real human tragedies caused by poverty, war, and natural disasters such as earthquakes. In Chile for 45 years, SOS works every day with children who are orphaned or abandoned due to difficult family circumstances, including those brought on by natural disasters.

With 13 active Children's Villages and a full complement of kindergartens, youth facilities, and counseling centers for vulnerable families, SOS is equipped to help children and families made homeless by the earthquake.

Well-Positioned to Provide Food and Shelter

Reports to date from SOS-Chile indicate that the earthquake caused structural damage to only a few of its Children's Villages. No injuries of children or staff have been reported. This leaves SOS in a strong position to offer help to earthquake victims living near its Villages.

Four SOS Children's Villages in the greater Concepcion area are ready to immediately provide temporary shelter for unaccompanied children and to support reunification with families. As it is doing for earthquake victims in Haiti, SOS is using its decades of experience delivering emergency aid to children and families to create a plan to help victims of Chile's terrible disaster.

You can help SOS Children's Villages. Please sponsor disaster orphans today.