Source: USGS

February 27, 2010: A massive 8.8 magnitude earthquake struck central Chile this morning triggering a tsunami. The quake that devastated Haiti's capital, Port-au-Prince, in January 12 was magnitude 7.0.

The tremor shook Chili's capital, Santiago, for a minute and a half, bringing down telephone and power lines.

The quake epicenter is located 200 miles southwest of Santiago and 70 miles north of Concepcion, Chile's second largest city, with a population of around 670,000.

The largest earthquake ever recorded struck the same area of Chile on May 22, 1960. That magnitude 9.5 quake killed 1,655 people and left 2 million homeless.

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.

SOS Children’s Villages has been working in Chile for decades. The organization started to operate in Concepción in 1965 where the first Village was established. Inadequate infrastructures in the immediate vicinity led to the creation of a number of additional facilities in the following years, such as SOS Kindergartens, SOS Youth Facilities, SOS Technical Schools, and various SOS Social Centers. In the following years, the number of Villages continued to grow in other areas of Chile, especially in the central region. At present there are thirteen active SOS Children's Villages, eleven SOS Youth Facilities, four SOS Kindergartens, two SOS Vocational Training Centers and ten SOS Social Centers.

You can help support SOS Children's Villages disaster relief efforts in Chili and around the world. Help SOS with a monthly disaster orphans sponsorship.