No casualties among ESO staff have been reported. At present, power cuts and network interruptions mean that communication may be limited. Disruption to staff travel plans within, to, and from Chile should be expected. We urge Visiting Astronomers with observations planned at ESO observatories to put their trips to Chile on hold until further notice. International flights to and from Santiago International Airport are currently either cancelled or diverted. Information about observing programmes will be provided at a later date.
Despite being the 7th strongest earthquake ever recorded worldwide, the ESO observatory sites did not suffer any damage, partly as they are engineered to withstand seismic activity and partly due to their distances from the epicentre. At La Silla, a power cut caused observations to be interrupted for 10 minutes, but proceeded then normally on generator power for the rest of the night. Paranal Observatory, the APEX telescope and the ALMA Operations Support Facility and Array Operations Site were unaffected.
Contact:
Lars Lindberg Christensen
Head of ESO ePOD
Garching, Germany
Tel: +49 89 3200 6761
Cell: +49 173 387 2621
Email: lars(at)eso.org
Douglas Pierce-Price
Garching, Germany
Tel: +49 89 3200 6759
Email: dpiercep(at)eso.org
Gonzalo Argandoña
Santiago, Chile
Tel: +56 2 463 3258
Email: gonzalo.argandona(at)gmail.com
