Huge EARTHQUAKE

[TomK]

Royall - I don't know yet. All can tell you is the JCMT and Subaru daytime crews evacuated after the big one today in an abundance of caution and also to simply let people get back home. I've closed UKIRT through the weekend as we'll need to do a damage assessment and I don't want to put people in harm's way when checking things and then another large earthquake occurs. I think we'll have to wait until the seismicity dies down - and it isn't as just reported (I felt it too!).

I do know that our shear pins at UKIRT broke today which indicates the telescope shifted on its mount. However, it's designed to do that in an earthquake so I don't count that as damage. Yet.