1960 Chile Earthquake

The largest earthquake recorded in the 20th century is the 1960 Valdivia earthquake, also known as the Great Chilean earthquake which occurred on May 22, 1960 and hit approximately 100 miles off the coast of Chile, which is parallel to the city of Valdivia. With a rate of 9.5 on the moment magnitude scale, this earthquake occurred in the afternoon and lasted approximately 2 minutes (brit). After just thirty minutes of the major earthquake, a foreshock shook the area near the towns of Valdivia and Peurta Montt (kids). The four foreshocks that followed had a magnitude of greater than 7.0. The largest earthquake had a magnitude of 7.9 and caused a large amount of damage to the Concepcion area. The devastating earthquake triggered a tsunami just off the coast of central Chile, which affected the entire Pacific Basin (usgs). After Chile, the tsunami traveled hundreds of miles and caused destruction all around the Pacific. The places that experienced the most impact was Hawaii and Japan (2010). The earthquake set off waves which bounced back and forth across the Pacific Ocean for a week (history). The Great Chilean earthquake along with the large tsunamis, has caused substantial damage to the country, it resulted to loss of life and homes, and presented long-term effects. Although the massive destruction had an overall negative
The reason for this is because of the buckling and stress from the movement of the tectonic plates. The epicenter of the earthquake was 60 meters below the ocean floor about 100 miles off the coast of Chile. Valdivia and Puerto Montt suffered significant damages based on how nearby they were to the center of a massive quake (extreme). The earthquake was a megathrust earthquake which is caused by the release of mechanical stress between the subducting Nazca Plate and the South American Plate which is on the Peru-Chile