More than 300 people have been killed after a huge earthquake struck Chile yesterday, destroying tens of thousands of homes and sparking fears of a tsunami in the Pacific.

Pacific nations have been bracing themselves for a tsunami following the 8.8-magnitude quake – with waves reaching Japan, Russia and Pacific islands – although the damage has so far been small.

The Chilean authorities said the official death toll in the country was 214, but they believed the true number was more than 300 and would increase.

1.5 million Chileans were affected by the disaster, with 500,000 homes severely damaged.

Initial Signs of Doomsday?

That could have triggered hurricane Matthew.

No way. Tropical cyclones are a component of wind. Most or all of the hurricanes into the Gulf of Mexico originate from West coast of Africa. They start as an innocent wind rush from the high lands going down to the coast and over the Atlantic. They possibly don't have a connection with earth tremors.

My bad :) confused Tsunami for Hurricane. Wouldn't that be catastrophic if both occured at same time, same place?

the stories of Haitians and their pact with old hob have been exagerated.
The Caribbean area is prone to hurricanes and other systems emanating from the west coast of africa (caused by the Sahara... IMAGINE THAT). Anyway - this has always been the case - think about it every Caribbean themed movie or story always have ships, pirates, treasure, buried treasure, sunken treasure e.t.c. these are stories from long ago. What used to happen was that the spanish and portugese used to do a lot of mining in the americas and would ship their gold to Europe but it had to be timed so that you are not at sea when the systems show up (they are fairly predictable i.e. Hurricane season). so some greed people would delay - filling their ships with gold e.t.c and would be caught in the tempest. Plus Pirates were also from the same period - guys who would "vuna" where they did not plant - wait for you to do all the hardwork and when in transit intercept your shipment.... So stories of "buried treasure" and "sunken treasure" were products of both the stealing/robbery of treasure and also the ships that were sent to davy jones' locker by tempests

Another piece of trivia is - Pirates used to actually have the eye patch... but were not mono eyed. they wore an eye patch so that their one eye was accustomed to darkens and when fighting on the hull they would see with the uncovered eye and as soon as they pushed you to the inside (bridge?) and there was darkness (limited light) they would switch the patch from one eye to another and the one that was covered would see better than the one that was not. You as the person being attacked would not see as well and they would have the advantage in that battle.