Re: Magnitude 6.8 earthquake near the West coast of Columbia

Edit: Early reports in English-language papers online quoted Caracol
Radio and gave the above news about 4 injured and numerous houses
destroyed or damaged by flooding. I was confused, on later checking
Spanish language Caracol Radio online, to read that there were no
damages or injuries reported and that the head of the Colombian mining
and geology service was discounting any risk of local tsunami. I
still don't understand the discrepancy, but a thought occurred to me
and I looked up El Charco online in relation to drug trafficking -- on
a quick look, it appears to be smack dab in the middle of all the
troubles, with villagers fleeing FARC in June and the cartels not too
far away in Cali, etc. That certainly could explain why everybody is
waiting until morning to assess damages. I don't know if it has
anything to do with the discrepancy about damages and injuries or if
that was just early confusion. In any case, the social and political
situation seems likely to complicate the information coming from the
region, and if needed, the delivery of aid and assistance to the
region.

Barb
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Rationalists, wearing square hats,
Think, in square rooms,
Looking at the floor,
Looking at the ceiling.
They confine themselves
To right-angled triangles.

If they tried rhomboids,
Cones, waving lines, ellipses --
As, for example, the ellipse of the half-moon --
Rationalists would wear sombreros.
-- Wallace Stevens, in "Six Significant Landscapes"

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