Chile Earth­quake — First Information
An earth­quake mea­sur­ing 8.8 on the Richter scale hit Chile at 0634UTC today (27 February).
I am now receiv­ing infor­ma­tion that the local emer­gency com­mu­ni­ca­tions group “Red Chile­na Nor Aus­tral de Ser­vi­cio (RECNA)” is active and some emer­gency com­mu­ni­ca­tions activ­i­ties are tak­ing place, most­ly with Argenti­na. Jorge Sier­ra, LU1AS who is the IARU-R2 Area Emer­gency Co-Ordi­na­tor is ask­ing that the fol­low­ing fre­quen­cies are kept clear:
7095, RECNA Con­trol Station.
Emer­gency Traf­fic has also been heard on 7050, 7060 and 7095 with sta­tions try­ing to con­tact Chile seek­ing infor­ma­tion about people.
Chile is also known to use the fol­low­ing fre­quen­cies for emer­gency communication:
3750, 3738, 7050, 7095, 14200, 14350, 21200, 21350, 28300, 28500 kHz.
Since a Tsuna­mi warn­ing is in effect for some coun­tries in the Pacif­ic it would also be use­ful to keep IARU Region 2 and Region 3 Cen­tre of Activ­i­ty fre­quen­cies clear in case oth­er coun­tries become involved, these are:
Region 2 3750, 3785, 7060, 7240, 7290, 14300, 18160, 21360
Region 3 3600, 7110, 14300, 18160, 21360
Japan­ese state broad­cast­er NHK is indi­cat­ing that if a Tsuna­mi was to affect that coun­try it would hit about 22 hours after the ini­tial earth­quake. Aus­tralia has issues Tsuna­mi warn­ings for parts of their coun­try. We should know soon if a wide area tsuna­mi has been cre­at­ed, a pre­dic­tion of arrival times can be found at:
http://www.prh.noaa.gov/ptwc/messages/pacific/2010/pacific.2010.02.27.154316.txt
Check the main site of http://www.prh.noaa.gov/ptwc/ for updates.
— Jim Lin­ton VK3PC, Chair­man, IARU Region 3 Dis­as­ter Com­mu­ni­ca­tions Committee.