Some streams were news station broadcasts, but some were live streams from cell phones on the ground.
The 8.8-magnitude earthquake hit Chile just south of Santiago at 3:34 local time yesterday. As a result, buildings collapsed and power went out in parts of Santiago — the airport was so badly damaged that it ceased operation, and the city's Fine Arts Museum suffered serious damage. 500,000 homes have been damaged or destroyed, and at least 300 deaths have been recorded so far. More numbers are still coming in.
Tsunami warnings were announced all around the pacific, including in Hawaii, but in most cases the waves turned out not to be severe. However, the Chile town of Talcahuano was badly damaged by tsunami waves yesterday.
If these images and those posted to Twitter have moved you, you can still use social media to help. We've written up a quick list of ways you can easily donate to relief efforts either by text message or the web. Google launched a person finder, so if you have information about a missing person (or if you're looking for someone) affected by the earthquake or tsunami, you can connect with others there. Finally, we've heard stories about people using Twitter hashtags to help one another find loved ones.
We've embedded a pre-recorded sample video of Ustream coverage below.