Buenos Aires – Just a quick note, a public posting, to thank all those of you who sent e-mails enquiring after Henry’s family in Peru with the now two earthquakes in the last two days. They’re fine, they live up on the far northwest coast, about an eight hour drive north of Lima, and the earthquakes’ epicenters were south of Lima by about an hour. They did feel the shockwave of the first one, though not enough to cause any damage or problems where they are. We’ve also talked with friends who live in Lima and luckily, no one amongst them was injured, though each had both experienced a large amount of fear going through this, as well as damage to their homes.

Others were not so lucky, as you may have seen from news reports – depending on how much press your local media is giving to this – if you haven’t seen anything about it, it doesn’t surprise me, I’ve seen several major disasters occur in the last couple of years down here that didn’t get so much as a mention on either CNN or BBC, the news channels most likely to carry something like this. Two earthquakes, roughly a day apart, at 7.9 and then 5.9 on the Richter scale, hit the southern coast of Peru, followed by a day and half red alert for a possible tsunami, which, at least as of now, hasn’t happened.

There are literally thousands of injured people, homeless people, and many hundreds who were killed in the two quakes. For those who live here in Buenos Aires who want to help, one of the local Basilicas has set up a drop off spot where you can drop off clothing, bedding, canned and boxed food, etc. that can be used for relief efforts – they’ll be delivering what is dropped off, in several bulk trips, as long as the donations come in. The place to drop stuff off is the Basilica Santa Rosa de Lima, at Av. Belgrano 2216, near the corner of Pasco.