Late Friday evening or early Saturday morning based on where you live, news broke about a big earthquake that hit Chile, measuring at over 8.0. But before CNN could report it, I found out through an unlikely source. American Idol alumnus, Elliott Yamin was in Chile and after a series of tweets in which he seemed to have had an uneventful evening (many which have since been deleted), he wrote this:
Huge earthquake just now in Chile!!….I swear I thought this was the end of my life!!!!!
It just goes to show how Twitter has become one of the defining sources of real-time information. A report coming from Chile wasn’t the first source of the news. It was a semi-famous person with a decent Twitter following who was actually in the earthquake.
Yamin became an actual news correspondent. His brother was relaying him information from CNN that mentioned a tsunami warning, but those in Chile didn’t hear that same warning and Yamin tweeted that the army was telling them to stick around. Later in the day, he went on ABC and NBC to talk about the earthquake.
Follow Yamin on Twitter for the latest information. His latest tweets have asked for prayers for the victims of the earthquake.
Photo of Yamin shared through creative commons (3.0 unported)
