An apartment building in Concepcion, Chile, near the epicenter of Saturday's devastating earthquake - Dow Jones Newswires staff photo
The economic devastation of Saturday’s powerful earthquake is beginning to come more into focus as scenes like the one above show large areas of damage and destruction. AIR Worldwide is estimating that the economic loss associated with the earthquake could be more than $15 billion. That number tried to estimate damage to not only buildings, but infrastructure, like roads, utilities and airports. It doesn’t take in to account potential lost business by industries big in Chile – copper, agriculture and fishing.
Latest Update: It has now emerged that North Korea tested three short-range missiles today in addition to a nuclear device which it detonated underground (which was initially detected as an earthquake; see below.) Markets continue to take the news in stride, with South Korea’s won the main victim and the yen also under pressure, given Japan’s proximity. (That said, markets are thin today because the U.K. and U.S. are on holiday.) Does this relatively unusual cluster of test firings/detonations mean North Korea’s neighbors are in greater danger than before? In the recent past, North Korea has tended to conduct such tests in isolation. The country’s first and only other known nuclear device test was in October 2006, according to DJN. Pyongyang claims today’s device was bigger than the first. A long-range missile was tested in April. At the time, North Korea described it as a “satellite” but various governments identified it as a missile. As governments roundly condemn today’s developments, arms control experts will surely puzzle out the deterrance issue in the context of a political transition under way in North Korea. This WSJ story by Jay Solomon, Evan Ramstad and Peter Spiegel is very illuminating: “North Korea Plans Kim Succession, U.S. Believes.” 
