Massive Earthquake Rocks Chile
An earthquake which may have registered as high as 8.8 on the Richter scale has struck the nation of Chile.
The quake struck at 3:34am local time and the epicenter was just off the coast near the city of Conception (population near 1 million) and within 200 miles rom the capital city of Santiago (population 5 million).
Just to compare, the Haitian quake registered 7.0 while the 1906 San Francisco quake came in around 7.9 (est).
The Richter scale is logarithmic which means this quake is roughly 10 times the force of the 1906 quake and close to 100 times the strength of the Haitian quake.
There is also a tsunami warning.
Because the quake occurred at 3am it is likely that we will have no clear death toll until the morning arrives. We can only hope that the toll will be low due to better building construction in the region
8 Responses to “Massive Earthquake Rocks Chile”
I can think of few countries (other than island nations) that are more threatened by tsunamis. Chile is basically A Coast.
With so many earthquakes, the world is going to split open and bust apart.
At this point, one can only hope that Chile, with its stronger economy, was able to weather it better than poor Haiti. I hope their success has led to safer construction and better emergency response. But 8.8 … that's a scarily-high number.
I had thought of Chile as a very mountainous country. Google earth shows Santiago, Chile at over 1000 meters in altitude. Even small cities.towns along the coast are over 100 meters above sea level. And my understanding of tsunamis is that, in this case, Chile would not be affected but Micronesia or New Zealand or New Guinea or even Hawaii might be.
These things always come in twos and seem to strike at seemingly distant places from the first. This quake followed just hours after the 7.0 in Japan.
I wonder when geologists will catch on to this phenomenon?
Tsunamis don't stop until they hit something. That's why virtually every country in/on the Pacific belongs to an alert system. The company I work for is managing properties in Hawaii right now and our CFO just headed there yesterday as the president of the company arrived back home. I think he probably knows about it since his home page on his computers is Fox News.
(Just posted this on Joe G's post, too)
These are some of the measurements of the tsunami effects already felt along the South American coast.
Not too bad…so far
The Galapagos Islands, about 600 miles off the coast of Ecuador were the most recent to experience the wave as it travels westwards.
Don't know how it will be on other continents or islands.
GAUGE LOCATION LAT LON TIME AMPL PER
——————- —– —— —– ————— —–
RIKITEA PF 23.1S 134.9W 1536Z 0.16M / 0.5FT 48MIN
DART MARQUESAS 5140 8.5S 125.0W 1531Z 0.18M / 0.6FT 18MIN
QUEPOS CR 0.0N 9.4E 1416Z 0.24M / 0.8FT 52MIN
BALTRA GALAPAGS EC 0.4S 90.3W 1452Z 0.35M / 1.2FT 14MIN
EASTER CL 27.2S 109.5W 1205Z 0.35M / 1.1FT 52MIN
ANCUD CL 41.9S 73.8W 0838Z 0.62M / 2.0FT 84MIN
CALLAO LA-PUNTA PE 12.1S 77.2W 1029Z 0.36M / 1.2FT 30MIN
ARICA CL 18.5S 70.3W 1008Z 0.94M / 3.1FT 42MIN
IQUIQUE CL 20.2S 70.1W 0907Z 0.28M / 0.9FT 68MIN
ANTOFAGASTA CL 23.2S 70.4W 0941Z 0.49M / 1.6FT 52MIN
DART LIMA 32412 18.0S 86.4W 0941Z 0.24M / 0.8FT 36MIN
CALDERA CL 27.1S 70.8W 0843Z 0.45M / 1.5FT 20MIN
TALCAHUANO CL 36.7S 73.4W 0653Z 2.34M / 7.7FT 88MIN
COQUIMBO CL 30.0S 71.3W 0852Z 1.32M / 4.3FT 30MIN
CORRAL CL 39.9S 73.4W 0739Z 0.90M / 2.9FT 16MIN
SAN FELIX CL 26.3S 80.1W 0815Z 0.53M / 1.7FT 08MIN
VALPARAISO CL 33.0S 71.6W 0708Z 1.29M / 4.2FT 20MIN
LAT – LATITUDE (N-NORTH, S-SOUTH)
LON – LONGITUDE (E-EAST, W-WEST)
TIME – TIME OF THE MEASUREMENT (Z IS UTC IS GREENWICH TIME)
AMPL – TSUNAMI AMPLITUDE MEASURED RELATIVE TO NORMAL SEA LEVEL.
IT IS …NOT… CREST-TO-TROUGH WAVE HEIGHT.
VALUES ARE GIVEN IN BOTH METERS(M) AND FEET(FT).
PER – PERIOD OF TIME IN MINUTES(MIN) FROM ONE WAVE TO THE NEXT.
Just a word about comparing the intensity of different earthquakes.
The Richer scale is based on the amplitude of the earthquake over the area involved. The earthquake in Haiti was contained in a much smaller area than the one in Chile. It is possible that a person standing at the center of the 7.0 earthquake would see a higher amplitude than someone standing in the center of the 8.8 one.