The Valdivia earthquake Earthquake of 1960 Chile The Valdivia earthquake The earthquake in Chile of 1960, also known as the “Valdivia earthquake” or “Great Chilean earthquake”, was a devastating earthquake that lasted 10 minutes, destroying the cities and towns in range. In the aftermath of the earthquake, a tsunami hit soon after the earthquake ended, hitting the coasts of Chile damaging and destroying whatever didn’t get hit by the earthquake already.

The epicenter location The epicenter of the earthquake was 60 meters deep in the ocean. It was estimated to be 100 miles off the coast in the Pacific. The people who were closer to the epicenter experienced the earthquake much more harshly than the ones who weren’t as close to the epicenter. There were many people who were effected by this event, but the worst of the damages were in the city of Valdivia, giving the great earthquake its name.

Magnitude This earthquake was the largest instrumentally recorded ever It measured a total of 9.5 on the Moment Magnitude (Mw) scale but registered only an 8.5 on the Ms scale The difference between the two scales is the Moment Magnitude scale is more scientific and uses instruments to record accurately. The Ms scale (Mercalli scale) uses the observations of the people who were in the earthquake, but isn’t as accurate as the Moment Magnitude scale because people tend to either eggaderate or not be able to describe the earthquake well.

Damage Even though this was the highest magnitude recorded, the damage and cost were not the highest. The cost of damage in Chile was roughly $500 million U.S. dollars. There were about 58,622 houses that were completely destroyed. Although Chile frequently gets earthquakes, the buildings were not built to withstand one this strong. To make things worse, after the earthquake a tsunami rolled in and caused more damage, along with more injuries and casualities. This picture proves how badly the earthquake hit the buildings and homes in Chile.

Injuries & Fatalities There were approximately 5,700 fatalities in the aftermath of the earthquake and tsunami. Reportedly, there was about 3,000 injured and there were 717 who went missing and only some were found in time. Fortunately, the large foreshocks sent people into the streets. This saved some lives, because the main shock came a few minutes after one of these large foreshocks. Many of the buildings and homes were luckily vacant when they fell. 

Map of Event The red line on the picture on the left side shows where Chile is located on the global map and the yellow circle on the picture on the right shows the location of the epicenter of the earthquake and also includes where tsunami warnings were (located in red) as well as indicating where tsunami watches were (located in orange)

Plate Tectonic Map This picture shows the coast of Chile including the plates surrounding it. The Nazca Plate is currently the plate that surrounds Chile itself and is named after the Nazca region of southern Peru and is an oceanic tectonic plate in the eastern Pacific Ocean basin off the west coast of South America. This is a subduction type plate. The movement of the Nazca Plate over several hotspots has created some volcanic islands as well as east-west running seamount chains that subduct under South America. Nazca is a relatively young plate compared to other plates.

Plate Tectonic Diagram This diagram shows how the Nazca plate subducts under the South American plate creating a deep sea trench and a chain of volcanic mountains. The deep subduction creates big earthquakes underground.

Other places this event would occur This event could happen anywhere, it just depends on how the plates are moving and the magnitude of it. Some places where similar events could happen to this earthquake could be anywhere near or on a coast, where after the earthquake hits a tsunami rolls in shortly after. The earthquake would need a fault that would move at a high magnitude, causing the earthquake to have a high rate on the moment magnitude scale.

Areas of US at risk The gentle landscape of southern Kansas hasn’t exactly been known to have had many earthquakes until recently, the notoriously flat state had just two of the seismic stations used for recording and locating earthquakes. Now, 21 are in place. They have been sorely needed. Since 2013, 192 earthquakes bigger than magnitude 2 have hit Harper and Sumner counties, on the border with Oklahoma, up from just two in the previous 35 years.

Works Cited Page http://www.britannica.com/event/Chile-earthquake-of-1960 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1960_Valdivia_earthquake https://www.google.com/url?sa=i&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=images&cd=&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=&url=http%3A% 2F%2Fwww.burkemuseum.org%2Fstatic%2Fearthquakes%2Fbigone%2Ftsunamis.html&psig=AFQjCNGH7O80MK3 K1vr2Duk-FyK7FCLZFw&ust=1453394177146427 https://www.google.com/url?sa=i&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=images&cd=&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=0ahUKEwjDrNy x6bjKAhXBcz4KHeOdCuAQjRwIBw&url=https%3A%2F%2Fen.wikipedia.org%2Fwiki%2F1960_Valdivia_earthquake &psig=AFQjCNGH7O80MK3K1vr2Duk-FyK7FCLZFw&ust=1453394177146427 https://catalog.data.gov/dataset/great-chile-earthquake-of-may-22-1960-anniversary-edition https://www.google.com/url?sa=i&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=images&cd=&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=&url=http%3A% 2F%2Fjoanveronica.hubpages.com%2Fhub%2FSaved-by-the-Camellia-Tree&psig=AFQjCNHrj5fP9- T9L2qoH3TT_Twq48nmoA&ust=1453395352887803 https://www.google.com/url?sa=i&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=images&cd=&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=0ahUKEwiouJCA8bjKAh UCXD4KHYdkB0cQjRwIBw&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.freeworldmaps.net%2Fsouthamerica%2Fchile%2Flocation.html&psi g=AFQjCNECPb94eZP3Fx3WZzl_buP4bCHTYw&ust=1453395925139885 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nazca_Plate http://safety.lovetoknow.com/Earthquake_Safety_Precautions