Within the Andes, most landslides occurred on forested mountain slopes around the Liquie-Ofqui Fault. Questions or comments? This potential disaster would have violently flooded all the settlements along the course of the river in less than five hours, with more dire consequences if the dam suddenly broke. In addition to this loss of the living, Quenuir lost many of its dead. Many of these people, including the nurse at right, contended with the waves near their source, along the coast of Chile. The house also withstood the first two waves of the tsunami that followed the quake, but the third wave swept it away. [40][41], The hospital of Valdivia, built in 1939, suffered major damages and patients had to be evacuated. The Valdivia earthquake occurred at 15:11 UTC-4 on 22 May, and affected all of Chile between Talca and Chilo Island, more than 400,000 square kilometres (150,000sqmi). At 16:20 UTC-4, a wave of 8m (26ft) struck the Chilean coast, mainly between Concepcin and Chilo. When the house came to rest, Hilo was dark because the powerplant had been knocked out by the same wave. By 1:04 a.m., the men on the bridge realized that they should run the few hundred feet to high ground. It shows that business recovery from a disaster is a complex and uncertain social outcome. [26] 150 boats, most of them used for fishing are reported to have "disappeared" in Mehun. Because of its geography, Chile remains one of the most seismically active countries in the world. Soon after the shaking from the quake stopped, she walked about 100 yards inland to a house that was more than half a mile from the nearest high ground. The 1960 Chile earthquake ruptured a fault zone along which a slab of sea floor is descending, or "subducting," beneath the adjacent South American Continent. I walked downtown because the university is really close to the sea and we were afraid a tsunami would follow. Eyewitnesses reported that the entire world appeared as if God had seized one end of it like a rope, and slung it as hard as he could. Her husband died of his injuries, and the body of her daughter was found 3 days after the tsunami. [11], The Chilean coast was devastated by a tsunami from Mocha Island (38 S) to Aysn Region (45 S). The area of intensities of VII or more did not penetrate into the Central Valley north of Lleulleu Lake (38 S) and south of Castro (42.5 S). BBC News website readers sent their eyewitness accounts of the earthquake which struck northern Chile on Monday. Some areas around the margin of the Pacific Ocean are located near subduction zones similar to the one that produced the 1960 Chile earthquake and its tsunami. [9] The average slip across all 27 Nazca subfaults was estimated to be 11m, with 2530m of slip 200500km south of the epicenter on offshore subfaults. The first of these was the 8.1 Mw Concepcin earthquake at 06:02 UTC-4 on 21 May 1960. After hours of drifting around in Corral Bay and Valdivia River, the ship was wrecked and subsequently abandoned by its crew at 1800 local time. The next morning, she found Casa Grande in good shape, its ground floor dry. [23], All the new infrastructure of the small port of Baha Mansa was destroyed by the tsunami, which reached heights of up to 10 metres above sea level there. Houses built upon elevated areas suffered considerably less damage compared to those on the lowlands, which absorbed great amounts of energy. Their house collapsed, but Mrs. Silva escaped and soon joined her husband on high ground. Some tugboats and small sailboats were stranded on Rocuant Island near Talcahuano. [37], The levels of material damage were relatively low given the high magnitude of the earthquake. It was a very strong tremor, which I have never experienced before in my life. The tremor triggered a giant tsunami which caused destruction and deaths as far away as Japan, around a day later. Estimates were the rupture zone stretched anywhere from 500 kilometers (311 miles) to almost 1,000 kilometers (621 miles) along the countrys coast. The electricity and water systems of Valdivia were totally destroyed. Surviving a tsunami: lessons from Chile, Hawaii, and Japan, eyewitness accounts of the Pacific Ocean tsunami associated with the giant Chilean earthquake in 1960 and 2010 Corporate author : Intergovernmental Oceanographic Commission Document code : IOC/BRO/2014/2 (rev.only in Eng) Estimates were the rupture zone stretched anywhere from 500 kilometers (311 miles) to almost 1,000 kilometers (621 miles) along the country's coast. The two most affected areas were Valdivia and Puerto Octay, near the northwest corner of Llanquihue Lake. Some minutes after the earthquake, the Navarro family saw the waters of the stream recede. Corrections? [60], After the earthquake, the Chilean Ministry of Economics began to develop a comprehensive reconstruction plan. How does the Chile earthquake of 1960 compare with other recent earthquakes? [14], Soil subsidence also destroyed buildings, deepened local rivers and created wetlands in such places as the Ro Cruces and Chorocomayo, a new aquatic park north of the city. The fault-displacement source of the earthquake extended over an estimated 560620 mile (9001,000 km) stretch of the Nazca Plate, which subducted under the South American Plate. [47][48], The earthquakes damaged an area that had suffered a long period of economic decline, which began with shifts in trade routes due to the expansion of railroads in southern Chile and the opening of the Panama Canal in 1914. Ramn Ramrez, 15 years old at the time of the tsunami, survived by climbing into the branches of a cypress tree (photo at right) on a plain west of Maulln. [62], In 1974, after the 1971 eruption of Villarrica volcano, COPERE was officially succeeded by ONEMI (Ministry of Interior National Emergency Office)Chile's modern-day emergency management agencywhen it was authorized by law as an independent governmental office by President Salvador Allende. [64] Two men were charged with the crime of murder and confessed, but later recanted. [26] Some kilometres north of Mahun at the coastal town of Queule, a carabinero reported hundreds of people dead or missing some days after the tsunami. The damages were to areas of poor soil quality, chiefly former wetlands and artificial fills. Eduardo Veliz, also from Iquique, said he witnessed a scene of chaos. Gathering cameras, notebooks, flashlights, and steel measuring tapes, they piled into a Ford station wagon for the 30-mile ride down to Hilo. All rights reserved. Mexico built and donated the public school Escuela Mxico after the earthquake. By 1:00 a.m., the water beneath the bridge had dropped to 7 feet (2.1 meters) below normal. Collileufu is located in the Budi Lake area, south of Puerto Saavedra, which was highly isolated in 1960. The May 22nd 1960 Chilean earthquake was the largest earthquake on record with a magnitude 9.5. Though the death toll was never fully resolved, early estimates ranging into the thousands were scaled back to 1,655. The Indian Ocean tsunami of 2004 was caused by a magnitude 9.1 earthquake; it killed at least 225,000 people in a dozen countries. About 10 days after the tsunami, Mr. Reyes happened upon bodies stuck in sand and being eaten by birds. Another wave measuring 10m (33ft) was reported ten minutes later. From the height of debris tangled in the branches of trees that remained standing after the 1960 tsunami, Wolfgang Weischet, then a geographer at the Universidad Austral de Chile in nearby Valdivia, estimated that water from the tsunami was as much as 13 feet deep in Queule. After that, the city was a complete disorder. These dams were removed later, with the exception of Calafqun Lake, which still retains its dam. The Chile earthquake of 1960 was caused by the release of mechanical stress due to the subduction of the Nazca Plate under the South American Plate along the Chile-Peru Trench, which has been the cause of many other earthquakes too. She or he will best know the preferred format. 2006. These cookies help provide information on metrics the number of visitors, bounce rate, traffic source, etc. While most landslides clustered around northsouth strips in the Andes, other areas that were affected by large numbers of landslides were the coast, mainly the foot of the Chilean Coast Range, and the shores of Llanquihue Lake. Though the death toll in Chile was never fully resolved, early estimates of deaths worldwide, ranging into the thousands, were scaled back to 1,655. The massive earth movement triggered . 17,029 pages were read in the last minute. The shock of this upward thrust also pushed the water above the plate boundary upward, creating a wave that moved outward in all directions. Walls from surrounding houses started cracking, glass started to break, and cars started jumping. Pablo Volenski, from Iquique, which is 115km (70 miles) from the epicentre,. The Nazca plate is a large tectonic plate that underlies the Pacific Ocean near the western coast of South America. Jos Argomedo survived the 1960 Chile earthquake, which he initially mistook for nuclear war. Three quarters of a mile to the south, however, was a barn. Carol and her family survived the 1960 Chilean tsunami without serious injury. The cookie is used to store the user consent for the cookies in the category "Other. Survivors on the roof later pulled the mother's body from the water. Such waves kept arriving for several hours. I am from Chile and lived through the 1985 and 75 earthquakes. In nearby Quenuir, at the mouth of the Ro Maulln, Estalino Hernndez climbed an arrayn tree to escape the tsunami's waves. These earthquakes formed a southward migrating foreshock sequence to the main Valdivia shock, which occurred just 15 minutes after the third event. The stories in this book were selected from interviews with people who survived a Pacific Ocean tsunami in 1960. Eyewitness accounts of the 1906 Earthquake Museum of the City of San Francisco Many eyewitness accounts and photos of the disaster. [75], Creation of a national emergency management agency. Observe devastation wrought by the Chile earthquake of 1960, https://www.britannica.com/event/Chile-earthquake-of-1960, USGS Earthquake Hazards Program - 1960 Great Chilean Earthquake, Geology.com - World's Largest Recorded Earthquake, Castro, Chilo Island, after the Chile earthquake of 1960, tsunami damage in Hilo, Hawaii after the Chile earthquake of 1960. [10], While the Valdivia earthquake was extraordinarily large, the 2016 Chilo earthquake hints that it did not release all the potential slip in that segment of the plate interface. Everyone was running into the streets in fear. Mr. Weischet took these before and after photos. The first three quakes, all registering in the planet's top 10 by magnitude for 1960, are grouped together as the 1960 Concepcin earthquakes. [23], Santiago, another ship anchored at Corral at the time of the quake, managed to leave Corral in a bad state but was wrecked off the coast of Mocha Island on 24 May. Prepared in cooperation with Universidad Austral de Chile, the University of Tokyo, the University of Washington, the Geological Survey of Japan, and the Pacific Tsunami Museum. However, many other residents of the area were not, and 122 were killed by the ensuing tsunami. Figueroa, Victor; Gayoso, Jorge; Oyarzun, Edgardo; Planas, Lenia. At daybreak she was more than a mile from where the tsunami had swept her up. The Rights Holder for media is the person or group credited. It handles some risks adequately, from public health and medicine to the risks generated by industrial production. Many buildings were damaged across northern Chile. These cookies will be stored in your browser only with your consent. La Milagrosa was battered by the currents and waves of the tsunami for four days while moving south. This cookie is set by GDPR Cookie Consent plugin. Its epicenter was near Curanilahue. The earthquake triggered numerous landslides, mainly in the steep glacial valleys of the southern Andes. When the first wave, only a few feet high, arrived just after midnight, hundreds of people were still at home on low ground in Hilo. At Mehun, near Queule, Jacinto Reyes buried some of the tsunami victims. [74] This 2010 earthquake was the largest to affect Valdivia since the 1960 event. Some residents of the town say that Mr. Atala was briefly restrained outside the warehouse by his wife, who grabbed his hair before he finally broke away. The waves set off by the Great Chilean earthquake bounced back and forth across the Pacific Ocean for a week. Ciencia & Trabajo, 20: 79-86, underground water flowing up through the soil, earthquake and landslide occurred in 1575, "Long-Term Perspectives on Giant Earthquakes and Tsunamis at Subduction Zones", "M 9.5 - 1960 Great Chilean Earthquake (Valdivia Earthquake)", "The Largest Earthquake in the World Articles", "Evidence for a large strike-slip component during the 1960 Chilean earthquake", "Exploring the Historical Earthquakes Preceding the Giant 1960 Chile Earthquake in a TimeDependent Seismogenic Zone", "Focal Process of the Great Chilean Earthquake May 22, 1960", "Slip Distribution and Seismic Moment of the 2010 and 1960 Chilean Earthquakes Inferred from Tsunami Waveforms and Coastal Geodetic Data", "Exploring the Historical Earthquakes Preceding the Giant 1960 Chile Earthquake in a Time-Dependent Seismogenic Zone", "The 1960 Chile earthquake: inversion for slip distribution from surface deformation", "El sufrimiento colectivo de una ciudad minera en declinacin. Waves wracked coastal communities as far away as New Zealand, Japan, and the Philippines. "The most powerful earthquake ever recorded struck near Valdivia, Chile on May 22, 1960, at 2:11 PM local time. This is the largest earthquake of the 20th Century. A series of foreshocks the previous day had warned of the incipient disaster; one, of magnitude 8.1, caused major destruction in Concepcin. When a 600-mile-long stretch of the South American tectonic plate was thinned during the 1960 earthquake, nearby land was lowered as much as 8 feet. After being inundated by the 1700 tsunami, this fishing camp became a tidal flat or a tidal marsh. The moment magnitude scale (MW) is used to measure the size of earthquakes in terms of energy released. One landslide caused destruction and alarm following its blockage of the outflow of Riihue Lake (see below). Performance cookies are used to understand and analyze the key performance indexes of the website which helps in delivering a better user experience for the visitors. Two days later the Cordn Caulle volcano in Chiles Lake District erupted after nearly 40 years of inactivity, an event thought by some seismologists to be linked to the quake. The Japan earthquake of 2011 had a magnitude of 9.0; it spawned a tsunami that killed an estimated 19,300 people in Japan and knocked out the electrical power to Japans Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant, creating the worlds second most serious nuclear emergency. Its epicenter was near Caete, Bo Bo Region, Chile, and its magnitude was 8.1 or 8.3 M W and 7.3 or 7.5 . In Osorno only about 20 houses were totally destroyed, although many firewalls and chimneys collapsed. The tremor caused localised tsunamis that severely battered the Chilean coast, with waves up to 25 metres (82ft). In addition to blocking roads, landslides caused by the quake dammed the Ro San Pedro in the foothills of the Andes about 40 miles east of the city of Valdivia, Chile. JetStream, Comments? The best solutions to fit the observations in four sequential time periods, 1960-1964, 1960-1968, 1965-1973 and 1980-2010, each yield a similar He value of about 65 km but significantly increasing . Though the tremor caused significant damage, it was the resulting tsunamis or high waves which were responsible for major destruction. Please Contact Us. The tsunami was a result of the largest earthquake ever measured (magnitude 9.5). [19], One of the main aftershocks occurred on 6 June in Aysn Region. 10 Major Accomplishments of Galileo Galilei, 10 Most Famous Paintings by Leonardo Da Vinci, 10 Most Famous Poems By African American Poets, 10 Most Famous Novels In Russian Literature, 10 Major Effects of the French Revolution, 10 Major Battles of the American Civil War, 10 Facts About The Rwandan Genocide In 1994, Black Death | 10 Facts On The Deadliest Pandemic In History, 10 Interesting Facts About The American Revolution, 10 Facts About Trench Warfare In World War I, Batman | 10 Interesting Facts About The Dark Knight. They killed 61 people and caused $24 million in damage at Hilo Bay on the main island of Hawaii. El Canelo. The train station and numerous buildings in the town were destroyed. He recalls that some of the houses, with their stoves still smoking, looked like ships. After this wave had passed and they thought it was safe, Mr. Eaton and his companions returned to the bridge and continued to record the water level during several more waves of the tsunami (see diagram below). Queule was connected by road in 1957 to the rest of the country and the town had developed into a balneario. The road connecting the two towns had been blocked by rocks, which had killed five people and telephone communication was impossible. [18] Structures that had been designed to resist earthquakes performed well during the earthquake, chiefly suffering damage when affected by soil subsidence or small fault movements. Across southern Chile, the tsunami caused huge loss of life, damage to port infrastructure, and the loss of many small boats. Though the oblique angle by which the waves approached the Pacific coast of the United States mitigated their force, Crescent City, California, saw waves of up to 5.6 feet (1.7 metres), and boats and docks in Los Angeles, San Diego, and Long Beach were damaged. Lots of the men got off the bus. The economic damage totaled $550 million (more than $4.8 billion, adjusted for 2020 inflation). [43] Aided by the United States, a geological survey of Valdivia was done following the earthquake and resulted in the city's first geological map. San Francisco residents watch the city burn. Know about the cause, effects, damage and death toll of the 1960 earthquake in Chile through these 10 interesting facts. He and his wife, Mara Silva, lived on low ground 2 miles east of Maulln. [18], After the earthquake a myth relating the unusually warm and clear weather conditions prior to the earthquake to its triggering. Generation. The earthquake's rupture zone was 800km (500mi) long, stretching from Arauco (37 S) to Chilo Archipelago (43 S). Pablo Volenski, from Iquique, which is 115km (70 miles) from the epicentre, described a "terrible" experience. Concomitantly, a ministerial-level committee, COPERE (Comisin de Planificacin de la Economa y de Reconstruccin), was officially named as the government's Planning and Reconstruction Committee. Outside Corral the crew rescued six nearly unconscious and dehydrated children on board two boats. In the account, all the people in and near the town of Maulln, Chile, survived the biggest earthquake ever measured. The relatively low death toll in Chile (5,700) is explained in part by the low population density in the region, and by building practices that took into account the area's high geological activity. These losses occurred, in part, because the warning sirens in Hilo on the evening of May 22, 1960, were interpreted differently by different people. The route was eastward along an unpaved road, across a bridge over a tidal stream, to uplands called Chuyaqun. Other volcanoes may also have erupted, but none were recorded because of the lack of communication in Chile at the time. Although a neighbor quickly took that route, the Navarro family stayed in their home, beside another tidal stream. Necessary cookies are absolutely essential for the website to function properly. The story was mentioned in a Time magazine article, although with little detail. Coastal areas were also lowered and submerged in Cascadia after the 1700 Cascadia earthquake. While every effort has been made to follow citation style rules, there may be some discrepancies. Some arrived there by 4:45 a.m., as the first large wave entered town. [61][63], In the coastal village Collileufu (La Araucana Region), native Lafkenches carried out a human sacrifice during the days following the main earthquake. Later, Carol and Ernest returned to Hilo after hearing on the radio that tsunami waves had already come into town and were only 7 feet high. The Valodivia Earthquake Breaking news on Fox today, It is May 20,1960 and the ground is shaking. Nabih Soza, at his store in 1989, remembers Ramn Atala, a fellow merchant in Maulln, Chile. The pines, grown for timber, covered low ground around Mr. Atala's barn. While Mr. Ramrez stayed safely in the cypress, the waters of the tsunami swirled about the tree. Around 8:30 p.m., coastal sirens in Hilo sounded and continued to sound intermittently for 20 minutes. The main tsunami crossed the Pacific Ocean at a speed of several hundred km/h and devastated Hilo, Hawaii, killing 61 people. On May 22, 1960, the largest earthquake in recorded historymagnitude 9.5struck southern Chile. They survived the tsunami, but 15 other people near them died. [70] He said that the Spanish settlers had evacuated and waited on high ground until after the dam burst, but many aboriginals died in the flood waters. What caused the Chile earthquake of 1960? However, others perished when the trees they climbed were toppled by the tsunami. The tsunami included many waves, but Ms. Gallardo recalls only the one that set her adrift. Historians Yoselin Jaramillo and Ismael Basso report that people in Queule decades later know about 50 people to have died because of the earthquake and tsunami.[27]. Subduction is a process that occurs at convergent boundaries of tectonic plates due to the movement of one plate under another. [54] It received state support through a long-term policy after the earthquake. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration 1994; Somoza 1998). The May 22nd 1960 Chilean earthquake is the largest earthquake on record with a magnitude 9.5 ( DeMets et al., 1990) for the main shock which occurred along a 1000 km N to S trending fault rupture at the subduction zone of the Nazca and South American plates ( Fig. The damage caused to Calle-Calle Bridge led to its temporary closure after the earthquake, with traffic redirected to Teja Island through Caucau River where people crossed it on boats and, reportedly, also a rudimentary and temporary wooden bridge. Many houses were carried inland by the 1960 tsunami. There was complete panic. Early in May 1960, the big news was the tension between the United States and the Soviet Union-a Soviet missile had downed an American spy plane. In the first weeks after the 1960 Chile earthquake and tsunami, Yolanda Montealegre provided shelter for 40 families in Casa Grande, her large home on the outskirts of Maulln, Chile. Egeria densa and other plants created a rich aquatic ecosystem that attracted a permanent bird fauna, notably black-necked swans. Hilo, Hawaii was destroyed. The 1960 Valdivia earthquake struck Chile on the afternoon of 22nd May 1960, causing widespread damage with Valdivia being the most affected city.Also known as the Great Chilean earthquake, it was a 9.5 M W earthquake making it the most powerful ever recorded till date.
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