February 27, 2010 3:34AM (local time, 1:34AM ET) One of the deadliest earthquake (the magnitude-8.8) hit Central Chile

If you want to know more about TSUNAMI, this is the great explanation how it occurs, on weather.com http://www.weather.com/outlook/weather-news/news/articles/tsunami-article_2010-02-27 TSUNAMI is a Japanese word, being adapted in US, like KARAOKE. I’ve experienced many earthquakes in my life but the biggest is 7.1 when I was living in Guam (April 26, 2002) I remember that I held my desk top computer so it wouldn’t fall from the computer desk, praying for the jolt would stop soon. We lost telephone communication (landline) for a couple of days, islandwide power outage & water pipes were cut. No death toll though! Guam gets a couple of earthquakes (3.8 ~ 4.6) per year, which I felt. Not bad. How severe it gets depends on how often they get the earthquakes, so the building code is strict, etc, from their experiences, and how long that earthquake lasts. Longer it lasts, as you can imagine, it causes more damages. This reminded me of Great Hanshin Earthquake in 1995 in Japan. Japan gets many earthquakes all the time, but most of them are small. But THAT earthquake’s death toll was over 6,400! I remember the death toll rose because of, not directly from the earthquake hit but they were consumed by Fire after they got trapped under rubbles. It occurred at 5:46AM when locals had started to prepare for breakfast, and most in Japan uses Gas stove. Also most Japanese houses are made of wood, and especially that area, those wooden houses are very old. The earthquake caused so much fire and I remember people were praying for more people to be rescued from under the rubbles BEFORE the fire got to them. Also each houses were built very close in that area, and Fire Engines couldn’t get through in those small alleys. That caused the delay in extinguishing fire. But after that devastation, their city’s building code got more strict. Most people here in east coast have never experienced the earthquakes, I hear, but you would feel helpless when the ground shakes! I’ve went through the Super typhoon, over 220m/h gust wind (lasted 12 hrs!, and that was very tiring…) but for typhoons & hurricanes, you can prepare some, but Earthquake hits without any warnings, anytime! That’s really scary…I’m also glad Tsunami didn’t hit hard in Hawaii, Japan, Guam and other places in the Pacific.