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Earthquake Update – Bad Stuff

January 12th, 2009

post2Now I can Blog about something really important after having to deal with that earlier time-waster.

Earthquakes never bothered me before. The house would rock and roll and everyone would call everyone to find out if they felt it.  Kind of exciting really. There was always damage somewhere in Costa Rica,  and occasionally, someone would be seriously hurt or die, but for some reason, I was detached from it. Not any more.

Latest stats look better than they are and do not tell the whole story:

Most recent death count: 14 (way down from earlier but I am not at all sure we have the final number)

Missing and presumed dead: 23

Injured: 100

These sound like low numbers… until you read this:

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A Public Response to a Not-Published Comment

January 12th, 2009

readYesterday, I Blogged about the proposed changes to the immigration law.

Today, I received a comment from one of the companies here in Costa Rica that assists people in establishing legal residency. The first half of his email pretty much tells stuff about him and a bit about his company. Pretty much like SPAMing through commenting.  Almost the entire second half is built around this comment:

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Much Ado About Nothing – Proposed Immigration Law

January 11th, 2009

nopanicI have received a fair amount of email regarding the proposed immigration laws and asking my thoughts.  I understand the panic as several online sources have made this out to be a done deal.  A disaster!  One such article promised the law would be passed before the Christmas Holiday.  All I can say is that Chicken Little would have been proud. Panic does sell though…  as we all know.

First… let’s look at what this is all about.

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At Least 30 Dead and Many Missing

January 10th, 2009

richorscaleI guess it takes an earthquake to get me online again!  My apologies for being away so long, but had some work issues that took a lot of time. Miguel will be happy though! Thanks to the others who wrote to inquire if we survived.

Those of us who live here deal with the many earthquakes.  Just a fact of life.  Those who live or have lived in California know all about it. The vast majority are small shocks (3-4) that rock the bed, make some noise and are generally not big deals.  Buildings in Costa Rica generally are built with a LOT of Rebar and concrete and most are very safe and suffer little damage. There are, however, many homes, especially in the country and areas not prosperous, that fall apart in the quakes.

This earthquake was nasty… 6.2. It was supposedly the strongest in 150 years… though I am not sure how they know that as the Richter Scale was not developed until the 1930’s.

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