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Dates: during 2010-2019
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...earthquake causes at the sea floor. The 9.0-magnitude quake that caused the devastating South Asia tsunami of 2004 yielded potent vertical displacement of about 16 ft. (5 m); Chile's Saturday temblor, centered just off the Pacific coast about midway between the capital, Santiago, and Concepción, is thought to have involved significant vertical motion as well. Fortunately, no other countries in the Pacific Basin were affected by the Chile tsunami. "But it's hard to understand how the Chileans didn't foresee a major tsunami, at least for its own coast so close to the epicenter," says...
...seen what kind of tsunami an earthquake this strong can hurl - as it did in 1960, when a 9.5-magnitude quake, the most powerful ever recorded, killed more than 1,600 people. Inexplicably, in the minutes after Saturday's quake, Chilean officials told coastal communities like Constitución that there was little if any danger of tsunamis. Chilean television networks later aired video of tall, destructive waves pushing houses, cars and boats through fishing villages. "We ran desperately up the hill and watched how the sea washed everything away," a woman in the village of Duao told a Chilean...
...Caribbean (ECLAC), cites three levels of damage in the Chile quake. The first was the collapse of older, pre-1960 buildings, many of which were further damaged because they were constructed too close to one another. The second was the failure of newer buildings like Concepción's apartment high-rises, which, while not pancaking like poorly built structures did during Haiti's 7.0-magnitude earthquake on Jan. 12, in many cases tilted over and broke, because even the strongest foundations can experience a kind of liquefaction by vibration in such powerful temblors. The last was the tsunami wreckage...
...death toll could eventually rise above 1,000. But right now, aside from the rescue process, the biggest issue on the ground is the top priority for any earthquake-battered country: getting food, water and medical aid to the hardest-hit zones. Rescuers were hampered in Concepción over the weekend by tear-gas smoke fired at grocery-store looters - an embarrassing scene that prompted Bachelet to arrange for vendors to give free food away...
Bachelet, a moderate socialist who remains remarkably popular in Chile, hands her office to conservative President-elect Sebastián Piñera on March 11. She is expected to ask U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton for a relatively small amount of American aid when Clinton visits Chile on Tuesday during her previously scheduled tour of Latin America this week. Clinton will no doubt praise Bachelet's leadership during the emergency - as most Chileans have, despite the apparent tsunami mishap. It will be up to Piñera to put mechanisms in place to make sure Chile...