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We are sure you all know about the devastating earthquake in Chile that took place early Saturday morning, February 28th, with aftershocks continuing through the weekend.  AUI and NRAO immediately contacted staff in Chile, and facilitated lines of communication between our employees in Chile and their concerned families and colleagues in the US.

News from our employees trickled in slowly at first, but by late Saturday, we had heard no reports of any ALMA personnel being injured.  We believe everyone has been accounted for.

We also have not heard of any negative impacts of the earthquake at the ALMA site.  While the south of the country has been severely affected, the north appears relatively unscathed.

We believe there was some minor damage to the Santiago ALMA headquarters offices, and no doubt some staff member’s homes in the Santiago area also were damaged.  The good news is that much of Santiago is modern, built under good building codes, and appears not to have suffered too much severe damage. We will get a fuller assessment in a day or two.

However, from a more general standpoint, this earthquake is a national crisis.  We recognize that some ALMA staff lived through a very traumatic event; others who were at the Operations Support Facility (OSF) at the time have homes in regions where damage was much more severe, and are having trouble returning.  ALMA has been facilitating their return home.  Affected ALMA staff are being given time off to attend to personal affairs, and ALMA has decided to suspend general operations for the remainder of the week.

We will get a fuller accounting in the days to follow.  We are extremely fortunate that ALMA and especially the ALMA staff have come through relatively unscathed.  But we can expect some disruption to ALMA construction while our staff, and the country’s communications and transportation, return to normal. 

We should all be conscious of what we can do to support our Chilean staff and colleagues and the larger community as Chile faces the aftermath of this extremely severe earthquake.