February 28, 2010

MSNBC

CONCEPCION, Chile - Chileans fearful of aftershocks camped outside Sunday in towns shattered by a massive earthquake, as officials struggled to grasp the scale of damage to transport, energy and housing infrastructure.

Photo: Chileans sleep in the street. (Stringer/chile / Reuters)

One of the world's most powerful earthquakes in a century hammered Chile early Saturday, killing more than 300 people as it toppled buildings and triggered a tsunami that surged across the Pacific to as far as Japan and Russia.

While the apparently low death toll could be considered a lucky escape from such a strong temblor, the quake dealt a serious blow to infrastructure in one of Latin America's most stable economies.

Newly built apartment buildings slumped and fell. Flames devoured a prison. Millions of people fled into streets darkened by the failure of power lines. The collapse of bridges tossed and crushed cars and trucks.

"It came in waves and lasted so long. Three minutes is an eternity. We kept worrying that it was getting stronger, like a terrifying Hollywood movie," said Santiago resident Dolores Cuevas.

The U.S. Geological Survey said the earthquake struck 56 miles northeast of the city of Concepcion at a depth of 22 miles at 3:34 a.m. (1:34 a.m. ET) on Saturday. The quake shook buildings in Argentina's capital of Buenos Aires, and was felt as far away as Sao Paulo in Brazil — 1,800 miles to the east.

Tsunami waves killed at least four people on Chile's Juan Fernandez islands and caused serious damage to the port town of Talcahuano.

Photo: Residents gather in the streets. (Michael Ferdes / Reuters)

'Enormous quantity of damage'

On the other side of the Pacific, Japan's northeastern coast registered waves of up to 4 feet.

Hundreds of thousands of people in Japan, New Zealand, the Philippines and Russia's far eastern Kamchatka Peninsula were told to evacuate after the quake but there were no reports of damage.

The Pacific Tsunami Warning Center later lifted its Pacific-wide tsunami warning.

Two million people in Chile have been affected by the earthquake, said President Michelle Bachelet, adding that it would take officials several days to evaluate the "enormous quantity of damage." She declared a "state of catastrophe" in central Chile.

The earthquake has raised a daunting first challenge for billionaire Sebastian Pinera, who was elected Chile's president in January in a shift to the political right and who takes office in two weeks.

Photo: Women cry next to a destroyed building in Talca, some 300 south of the capital, Santiago. (Victor Ruiz Caballero / Reuters)

"We're preparing ourselves for an additional task, a task that wasn't part of our governing plan: assuming responsibility for rebuilding our country," Pinera said late Saturday. "It's going to be a very big task and we're going to need resources."

'It's like the end of the world'

The government faces the task of helping Chileans rebuild an estimated half a million homes that were severely damaged as well as hundreds of buckled roads and collapsed bridges.

"It was like the end of the world," said Vicente Acuna, 76, in the southern town of Talca.

More than 100 aftershocks were reported in the hours after the quake.

In Concepcion, a city of 670,000 people 70 miles southwest of the quake's epicenter, hundreds of people spent the night in tents and make-shift shelters.

The city's old houses made of adobe appeared to have borne the brunt of the damage, but a 15-story apartment block also collapsed, likely killing or trapping many people inside. Local radio reported 100 people were trapped in the building.

City streets were strewn with crushed cars, fallen power lines and rubble from fallen buildings. Police patrols were stepped up to deter looters.

Photo: Residents take food from a market damaged by an earthquake in Talcahuano Port. (Jose Luis Saavedra / Reuters)

Mauri Arancibia, 23, said she was relieved to learn her aunt emerged unscathed after her adobe house collapsed on her. But she said she was shaken by the scenes of destruction in Concepcion.

"I'm really worried, I don't know what to do," she said.

In the capital of Santiago, 200 miles northeast of the epicenter, a car dangled from a collapsed overpass, the national Fine Arts Museum was badly damaged and an apartment building's two-story parking lot pancaked, smashing about 50 cars whose alarms rang incessantly.

“I saw how the cars fell off and I didn’t know what to do. I was alone here,” said Mario Riveros, a security guard at a factory in Santiago, as he stood next to a bridge that had fallen, according to La Segunda newspaper. “I felt like crying.”

Three hospitals in Santiago collapsed, and a dozen more south of the capital also suffered significant damage, a health official said.

In the mainland coastal town of Vichato, in the BioBio region, waves flooded hundreds of houses. Tsunami waves also swept into the port town of Talcahuano, causing serious damage to port facilities and lifting fishing boats out of the water, local television reported.

ADN Radio reported many beach towns were wiped out, including Matanzas, a wind- and kite-surfing destination that attracts many foreigners.

Photo: Fishing boats washed up by a tsunami generated by the earthquake are seen in Talcahuano Port, Chile. An 8.8-magnitude earthquake struck central Chile early Saturday, killing more than 200 people and causing a tsunami across the Pacific Ocean. (Reuters)

An earthquake also hit northern Argentina, causing a wall to collapse in Salta, killing an 8-year-old boy and injuring two of his friends, police said. The U.S. Geological Survey said the magnitude-6.3 temblor was a separate, "triggered earthquake" caused by ground waves from the Chilean quake.

Scientists say the quake was a "megathrust" — similar to the 2004 Indian Ocean temblor that spawned a catastrophic tsunami.

Megathrust earthquakes occur in subduction zones where plates of the Earth's crust grind and dive. Saturday's jolt occurred when the Nazca plate dove beneath the South American plate, releasing tremendous energy.

In 1960, Chile was hit by the world's biggest earthquake since records dating back to 1900. The 9.5-magnitude quake devastated the south-central city of Valdivia, killing more than 1,600 people and sending a tsunami that battered Easter Island 2,300 miles off Chile's Pacific coast and continued as far as Hawaii, Japan and the Philippines.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/35615455/ns/world_news-chile_earthquake/

www.standeyo.com/NEWS/10_Earth_Changes/100228.8.8.EQ.Chile.kills.300.html

 

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