NEW YORK

Not even the vibrancy of the city that never sleeps could get lifelong New Yorker Milton Greidinger to leave his home. Chronic illness kept Greidinger, 86, from participating in outside activities. Loneliness set in. "I was just waiting for my time to finish," Greidinger says.

The messages began flowing soon after the quake hit the country.

"Urgent. In Constitucion an eight-year old boy named Ivan Lara showed up alone. He's looking for his family," stated a post on Twitter.

"Urgent. If someone needs a ride to Concepcion call ... will be traveling tomorrow and there's room in the car," tweeted another user two minutes later.

And 20 seconds after that, another person posted a link to a Web site with a list of supermarkets still open in the central-south region of Chile.