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...open (the store ended up opening early to accommodate them). But despite the lines, there seemed to be more concern and caution than outright fear. "Everyone is small-kine panicking," said one resident, using a local term for "just a little bit." See a graphic depiction of the Indian Ocean tsunami...
Scientists still can't predict exactly when earthquakes will occur, but the massive temblor that struck off the coast of Chile early Saturday was anything but unexpected. Chile sits on the Ring of Fire, the volatile, 40,000 km-long (25,000 MILE) zone that encircles the Pacific Ocean and includes the most seismically dangerous ground on the planet. The unstable plate tectonics along the Ring produce some 90% of the world's earthquakes as well as most of its volcanic eruptions. (See where experts predict the next five major earthquakes will...
Because the Ring follows the coastlines of Pacific Ocean, almost any major quake can also produce a tsunami, a powerful wave that travels from the epicenter of the temblor across the ocean basin. That's what happened in 2004, when a 9.3-magnitude quake off the Indonesian island of Sumatra triggered a devastating tsunami, and that's is what's likely to happen following today's 8.8-magnitude quake off the coast of Chile. (See the latest photos of the earthquake in Chile...
...creating the beginning of a wave, not unlike dropping a stone in a bathtub. The wave then travels away from the epicenter of the quake. In the case of the Chile temblor, the waves are moving in a northwest direction across the Pacific, putting nearly every shoreline along the ocean at some risk...
...waves travel at roughly the speed of a passenger jet, but because of the vast distance they are traveling across the Pacific from Chile's coast, vulnerable islands hours to prepare. That wasn't the case during the 2004 tsunami, which rippled across the much smaller Indian Ocean basin before there was time to raise a proper warning...