It was called the Great Chilean Earthquake. On May 22, 1960, the most powerful earthquake ever recorded struck Chile near the town of Valdivia. The Valdivia quake measured an astounding 9.5 out of 10 on the Richter Scale. This was a true monster. This single geological event acounted for 25% of all the energy released by all the earthquakes for the century after the great San Francisco earthquake of 1906. The Valdivia earthquake packed the energy of 178 million tons of TNT. The earth shook, not for seconds, but for as long as 5 minutes. Coastal villages disappeared. A tsunami of 26 feet overwhelmed the Chilean coast. The giant tsunami stretched out across the Pacific at 200 miles per hour and caused massive destruction. It crashed into Hawaii with 35-foot high waves and also devastated portions of costal Japan.
Poor Chile has had its share of troubles. They just had a volcano erupt a few weeks ago, Villarica, I think. Here is a great site with lots of volcano pictures, starting with Calbuco, and then Villarica, don’t know about the rest.
About our recent cold northern winters, it might be Iceland volcanoes, but some say it’s changes in air currents caused by more open water in the Arctic Ocean. Do you have any data on volume of airborne particles from recent Iceland volcano activity?
Here is an additional link with active photos and video of the current Calbuco eruption.
http://www.cnn.com/2015/04/23/americas/chile-volcano/