Washington, February 28: A massive 8.8 magnitude earthquake struck Chile early yesterday, killing at least 210 people, bringing down homes and hospitals, and setting off a tsunami that triggered warnings and evacuations across the entire Pacific.
At the time of writing, a tidal wave of as yet undetermined height is heading, at a speed of hundreds of miles an hour, towards places as far away as Australia, the Philippines and even Russia. In the early hours of today it reached New Zealand, having arrived in Hawaii to no great effect a few hours before. The island, in the words of the Pacific Tsunami Warning Center, “dodged the bullet”.
Yesterday’s quake was far stronger than the 7.0 magnitude tremor that killed more than 200,000 in Haiti in January, but it happened in a country that is better prepared than most. Yet the impact was immediate and, for those feeling it, severe. Chilean TV showed images from the city of Concepcion of collapsed homes, broken roads, large buildings engulfed in flames, the injured lying in the streets or on stretchers, and residents huddled in streets strewn with glass and masonry.
Many were terrified by the powerful and repeated aftershocks. In the hours after the quake, there were no fewer than 50 that registered a magnitude greater than 5.0, and one at 6.9 – within a whisker of the main Haiti tremor. The country’s President, Michelle Bachelet, wasted little time in declaring a “state of catastrophe” in central Chile. The death toll is expected to rise, but not, according to the country’s Interior Minister, Edmundo Perez, dramatically. He may yet be proved wrong.
–Agencies