Chile Earthquake devastates country with 8.8

At 3:34 a.m. (local time) on February 28, 2010, Chile experienced a massive 3 minute long, 8.8 magnitude earthquake killing hundreds of people, trigerring a 7 foot tsunami, and destroying millions of homes. In terms of energy release, it was 500 times greater than the recent Haiti earthquake according to ABCNews.go.com.

Below is a recorded video from CBS News (courtesy of Youtube.com):

President Michelle Bachelet has declared a “state of catastrophe” in the country and a tsunami alert was sent across 53 countries, including most of Central and South America and as far as Australia and Antarctica. (source)

Chile is a part of pacific “Ring of Fire” and earthquakes are common. One of strongest earthquake the country ever experienced was in May 22, 1960 where a 9.6 magnitude quake killed over 1,000 people. It was also called “1960 Valdivia Earthquake” and was recorded as world’s most powerful earthquake ever recorded.

That’s why, most of their buildings are designed to withstand earthquakes such as this one but unfortunately, it was reported that a 15-storey building had collapsed.

Moreover, research scientist Richard Gross at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif. reported that the earthquake had actually shortened the earth day by 1.26 microseconds permanently and moved Earth’s figure axis by about 3 inches (8 cm or 27 milliarcseconds). (source)