Word: temblor
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Dates: during 2010-2019
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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...
...country's rock-bottom education levels hardly meet the sophisticated design demands of prosthetics. But studies show that before the quake, less than a quarter of Haitian amputees ever had access to replacement limbs. (Healing Hands says much of its Port-au-Prince clinic was severely damaged in the temblor.) Most previous amputees were like Verly Boulevard, 31, who lost a leg in a car crash and has spent years hobbling on crutches, unemployed. "In Haiti, if you're an amputee you don't exist," says Boulevard as he waits for water at a crowded and squalid tent camp...
...Food Programme estimated it has fed hundreds of thousands of people but cautioned that far more were going hungry--President René Préval issued an appeal for 200,000 tents to house some of the more than 800,000 people rendered homeless. Préval, whose palace collapsed in the temblor, intends to move into one himself...
...wrongdoing that occurred before the earthquake. Grieving parents who protested over the deaths of their children in collapsed schools were silenced by payments and by threats of punishment if they continued their agitation. Officials have declared that the extent of the destruction was due to the intensity of the temblor, not substandard buildings. But the government has taken a hard line on misuse of rebuilding funds, and a handful of people have been punished. While the size of rebuilding efforts means that there will inevitably be some graft, the extent of official and unofficial scrutiny means...