> From the WeatherWatch archives
Saturday’s massive 8.8 earthquake was certainly one for the record books but as far Chileans go it wasn’t the biggest.
In 1960 Valdivia, Chile, recorded a mammoth 9.5 on the Richter Scale earthquake.
Just like Saturday’s quake the epicentre was south of the nation’s largest city Santiago.
It caused localised tsunamis that severely battered the Chilean coast, with waves up to 25 meters high. Saturday’s tsunami was just 2.7 metres in comparison, although still potentially devastating.
Devastating waves killed one New Zealander and destroyed many villages along our nation’s east coast.
The quake in Chile was 80 times stronger than the earthquake that devastated Haiti last month.
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Before you add a new comment, take note this story was published on 1 Mar 2010.
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Guest on 1/03/2010 4:56am
My understanding of the Richter Scale is that it is logarithmic, and done so that each increase in number represents 30 times as much energy released.
With the Haiti quake at 7.0 and the Chile quake at 8.8, that would mean that the Chile quake released 800 times as much energy than the Haiti quake.
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