Travel Warning: Large Earthquake Hits Chile
Image by USGS
An 8.8 magnitude earthquake at 3:34am at the epicenter off the coast of Maule in Chile 200 miles (320 km) southwest of the capitol city of Santiago. The earthquake struck at a depth of 21.7 miles. Reports indicate the shaking was felt between 10 and 30 seconds.
The earthquake was initially measured at 8.3, while some have placed it at an 8.5. For the latest estimated magnitude, check the USGS website.
A tsunami warning was been issued for Chile and Peru and a tsunami watch has been issued for Ecuador.
Chile holds the record for having the largest earthquake in history. In 1960 a 9.5 struck the country and killed more than 1655 people. The latest large earthquake is about 80 times bigger than the earthquake that devastated Haiti last month. More than 200,000 people were killed in the Hatian earthquake and 1.2 million have been left homeless.
A 7.0 earthquake struck off the coast of Okinawa, Japan earlier today, which sparked a tsunami warning. The tsunami ended up only being 10 centimeters high, but two elderly women were injured in the initial shaking. Like Chile, Japan is prone to earthquakes and damage was minimal. There have been no reported deaths as a result of the earthquake.
Have anyone noticed that earthquake is a bit frequent these days? . Does climate change have any thing to do with earthquake?
I’m not a scientist, but i don’t believe it has to do with climate change. Sometimes the earth is just more seismically active than other times. Earthquakes are very unpredictable.
Of course, there might just be a higher level of earthquake awareness too. Here’s an interesting link showing the number of earthquakes by magnitude per year: http://earthquake.usgs.gov/earthquakes/eqarchives/year/eqstats.php
As a side note, I was in San Diego during the 7.2 Easter Sunday quake a couple of weeks ago. It was quite a shaker, that’s for sure! Biggest earthquake I’ve ever been in and I’ve lived in California all my life.