Taking place on 03:34am local time on the 27th of February 2010, Chile suffered a massive 8.8 magnitude earthquake positioned off the coast of central Chile. This deadly quake was situated offshore Bio-Bio Chile, 35 km deep and 325 km SW away from Santiago. Ranked as the 6th most biggest earthquake to ever be recorded on a seismograph, the intense shaking lasted a strenuous 3 minutes and had a lasting effect to be felt in up to 6 Chilean district which makes up around 80% of Chile’s total population.
The site of the disaster happened along the boundary at the Peru-Chile trench where the Nazca and South American tectonic plates are located and their convergence measuring up to 80mm per year, with the Nazca plate sub-ducting underneath the South American plate. Few tremors were felt in the Santiago, the capital city being too far away to experience the shaking but could be felt throughout many neighboring Argentine cities as well, the shaking spread up to the most northern parts of the country up to Southern Peru in the city of Ica which lies approximately 2400km.
Epicenter spread of the 8.8 magnitude impact quake
The devastating after affects from the early morning earthquake and tsunami. Destruction is everywhere, debris scattered in the streets of coastal Chile.
The epicenter of the earthquake was located 115 km from Concepcion the 2nd largest city of Chile. The result of this earthquake forced a seabed upwards, setting off a tsunami affecting numerous coastal towns positioned in south-central Chile and causing destruction to the port at Talcahuano. The Chilean town Constitución was hit with waves as high as 15m and Talcahuano port was damaged with surges as tall as 2.4. This tsunami later journeyed across the Pacific ocean at 725km/h to encounter the Juan Fernández Islands (675km off the Chilean coast) where they struck with 3m tall waves but gradually weakened before reaching the shorelines of California, New Zealand, Japan and Hawaii over the following hours. Some other devastating after effects that followed the earthquake was a black-out that became a consequence to 93% of the Chilean people which lasted several days in some country towns and a wildfire also spread from a chemical plant on the edge of the capital city, Santiago. The total reported amount of fallen casualties were 525 with 25 missing, the dead being mostly found under collapsed buildings and inside cars. By the 3rd of March the number of casualties had increased to over 800.
Here in this video, captures the shocking sudden moment of when the earthquake struck. Videography from various camera locations show the severe, unexpected impact.