I was reading the New York Times when I came across this article which really made me wonder about the ability of the Chilean government to communicate with its citizens. On January 18th in Santiago Chile, a false tsunami alarm caused thousands of people to flee their homes in terror! Apparently 3 young men ran through a beach around 2am screaming that a huge wave was coming and caused the entire city to panic. The article said that an estimated 12,000 people fled their homes and caused over 4 car accidents, not to mention the many people who had to be taken to the hospital because they went into shock. It made me wonder about the forms of communication in this part of Chile because the authorities were not able to calm the citizens down and tell them that it was a false alarm until thousands of them had already fled to the mountains!
Here is a link to the article in case you are interested:
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1 comment:
On the one hand, the story seems absurd and makes Chileans and the Chilean Government appear as either paranoid or incompetent. On the other hand, you can't blame the overreaction given the recent tsunami tragedy in Asia. I wonder how Californians or Floridians would have reacted under similar circumstances.
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