The following information was received from Greg Mossop, IARU Region 1 Emergency Communications Co-Ordinator.
An earthquake measuring 8.8 on the Richter scale hit Chile at 0634UTC today (27th February).
I am now receiving information that the local emergency communications group “Red Chilena Nor Austral de Servicio (RECNA)” is active and some emergency communications activities are taking place, mostly with Argentina. Jorge Sierra, LU1AS who is the IARU-R2 Area Emergency Co-Ordinator is asking that the following frequencies are kept clear;
7095, RECNA Control Station
Emergency Traffic has also been heard on 7050, 7060 and 7095 with stations trying to contact Chile seeking information about people.
Chile is also known to use the following frequencies for emergency communication;
3750, 3738, 7050, 7095, 14200, 14350, 21200, 21350, 28300, 28500kHz.
Since a Tsunami warning is in effect for some countries in the Pacific it would also be useful to keep IARU Region 2 and Region 3 Centre of Activity frequencies clear in case other countries become involved, these are;
Region 2 3750, 3785, 7060, 7240, 7290, 14300, 18160, 21360
Region 3 3600, 7110, 14300, 18160, 21360
Japanese state broadcaster NHK is indicating that if a Tsunami was to affect that country it would hit about 22 hours after the initial earthquake. Australia has issues Tsunami warnings for parts of their country. We should know soon if a wide area tsunami has been created, a prediction of arrival times can be found at
http://www.prh.noaa.gov/ptwc/messages/pacific/2010/pacific.2010.02.27.154316.txt
Check the main site of http://www.prh.noaa.gov/ptwc/ for updates.