At 3:34 am local time, February 27th, a devastating magnitude 8.8 earthquake struck Chile, one of the strongest earthquakes ever recorded. The photo above inspired me to reread the literary account of another earthquake in the same country but almost 400 years ago. Written in 1807, Kleist's novella The Earthquake in Chile has lost nothing of its horror. The original German version Das Erdbeben in Chili is also available on the internet.