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WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A massive magnitude 8.0 earthquake on Tuesday off the coast of Chile, near the mining port of Iquique, sparked a tsunami warning for all of Latin America's Pacific coast, the Pacific Tsunami Warning Center said. "An earthquake of this size has the potential to generate a destructive tsunami that can strike coastlines near the epicenter within minutes and more distant coastlines within hours," it said.

Magnitude 7.2 - MAULE, CHILE 2012 March 25 22:37:06 UTC Versión en Español Details Summary Maps Scientific & Technical Tsunami Earthquake Details This event has been reviewed by a seismologist. Magnitude 7.2 Date-Time Sunday, March 25, 2012 at 22:37:06 UTC Sunday, March 25, 2012 at 06:37:06 PM at epicenter Time of Earthquake in other Time Zones Location 35.198°S, 71.783°W Depth 30 km (18.6 miles) Region MAULE, CHILE Distances 27 km (16 miles) NNW of Talca, Maule, Chile 55 km (34 miles) WSW of Curico, Maule, Chile 99 km (61 miles) NNE of Cauquenes, Maule, Chile 219 km (136 miles) SSW...

Cmdr Mariano Rojas, thehead of the Navy's oceanographic service, was asked to step down as the scale of the tsunami damage became clear. Port captains in several towns issued their own warnings, but a national alert never came, and some say that failure led to deaths. Police officers search for victims on the beach near Pelluhue, some 322 kms southwest of Santiago The tsunami is believed responsible for many of the deaths and damage. Following the earthquake, military officials admitted an “error of diagnosis” and said they had transmitted “very unclear information” to President Michelle Bachelet on whether to lift...

Chile has sacked the head of the navy's Oceanography Service (SHOA), saying he failed to provide a clear warning of the killer tsunami that followed a huge earthquake. SHOA chief Mariano Rojas was immediately removed from the post, while the head of the Navy was opening an investigation "on the circumstances of the decision process after the natural catastrophe hit the country", an official statement said on Friday. Along with the emergency response agency ONEMI and the president's office, SHOA headed the official response to Saturday's massive 8.8-magnitude tremor and ensuing tsunami waves, which killed more than 800 people and...

6.6-Magnitude Aftershock Rocks Chile

SANTIAGO, CHILE -- The massive earthquake that struck Chile on Saturday caused hundreds of millions of dollars in damage to one of the world's most popular wine industries, sending rivers of merlot and cabernet sauvignon pouring from cracked barrels and vast storage tanks onto warehouse floors. "That was hard to watch," said Pablo Morande Jr., who said he looked on as 2 1/2 million liters of wine sloshed into the ground at his vineyard in Chile's battered wine country. Vintners and analysts of an industry that is the fourth-leading wine exporter to the United States after Italy, France and Australia...

Three big, successive aftershocks shook Chile's south-central regions Wednesday, further rattling a nation already on edge after the massive 8.8 magnitude quake that struck it early Saturday. Wednesday's temblors triggered local tsunami alerts along the coasts of the Bio Bio and Maule regions, the two hardest hit by Saturday's quake and an ensuing tsunami. Blaring sirens sent already nervous residents scurrying for higher ground in the seaport of Talcahuano, reported Dow Jones Newswires journalists at the scene. Tsunami alerts were also heard in the coastal towns of Concepcion and Constitucion, according to local radio broadcasts. All three towns were ravaged...

Chile - The earthquake swarm in Chile continues today, already 3 earthquakes could be counted today that rates above the 5magnitude and the last earthquake was less than a hour ago. The latest one is a 5.1magnitude and hit just of the shore of Valparaiso. The second and the third earthquakes were a 5.1 that striked offshore at Bio-Bio the other one was a 5.4magnitude that striked just off shore of Maule. There were also 3 earthquakes between the 4 and 5 magnitude mark in Chile.

ailnlv writes "Days on Earth just got shorter. The recent earthquake in Chile shifted the planet's axis by about 8 cm and shortened days by 1.26 microseconds 'The changes can be modeled, though they're difficult to detect physically given their small size... Some changes may be more obvious, and islands may have shifted... Santa Maria Island off the coast near Concepcion, Chile’s second-largest city, may have been raised 2 meters (6 feet) as a result of the latest quake...'"

Looters pillaged shops, homes and even attacked a fire station in the burning Chilean city of Concepcion, as rescuers try to find quake survivors. Police fired tear gas to try to disperse an angry crowd that set fire to the Bigger supermarket after they were prevented from entering. Black smoke billowed out over the ruins of Concepcion, one of the cities worst hit by Saturday's 8.8-magnitude quake, which has killed more than 720 people. "It's full, they have water, food, diapers, but the police won't let us go inside," complained one man standing next to the supermarket after a curfew...

In his days on the staid old London Times of the 1930s, Claud Cockburn won an in-house competition for the most boring headline by coming up with "Small Earthquake in Chile: Not Many Dead." ...snip... Seismology in this decade is already emerging as the most important new department of socioeconomics and politics. The simple recognition that nature is master and that the crust of our planet is highly volatile has been thrown into some relief by the staggering 250,000 butcher's bill exacted from the people of Haiti by a single terrestrial spasm, and by the relative survival capacity of Chileans...

Looting raged in the hard-hit southern city of Concepción, Chile's second-largest, while scores of people remained trapped in a 15-story apartment building that toppled onto its side. Earthquake experts said the death toll so far appears low considering to the enormous power of the magnitude-8.8 quake, in part because many buildings were engineered to withstand such an event. The northern capital of Santiago was slowly returning to business as usual Monday. Subway lines were running again and many shops and offices were open for business, though residents were rattled by aftershocks and scattered cases of gangs attempting to rob markets...

March 2, 2010 ‘The Sea Was 30 Metres High. Everybody Ran’ Dom Phillips, Constitución A mother and daughter are reduced to tears after looters set fire to a supermarket near their home in Constitución. When the earthquake struck the dirt-poor coastal town of Constitución, José Carrasco was sleeping in the cab of his truck by the beach. “It was really strong, shaking,” he said. Forty-five minutes later he saw the first tsunami wave coming towards him. “The sea came and covered everything. It was 30 metres high. There were two waves. When we saw the sea coming in, everybody ran....

Disaster: The 8.8-magnitude earthquake that ripped through Chile was as bad as they come. But unlike Haiti, which suffered a quake of its own six weeks ago, Chile's misfortune was confined to nature alone. Chile's monster quake over the weekend tore apart apartment houses, flung SUVs like toys on highways and washed whole villages out to sea. Those in it said the ground literally jumped for 90 long seconds. Yet unlike Haiti, which lost upwards of 250,000 people in its 7.0 quake Jan. 12, Chile's death toll as of Monday was 725, fewer than even the 1,800 who died in...

Chilean authorities are struggling to maintain order, distribute supplies, and rescue survivors after Saturday's powerful earthquake that killed more than 700 people and damaged or destroyed hundreds of thousands of homes and buildings. President Michelle Bachelet is attempting to rally her nation in the face of tragedy and devastation, while appealing to the international community for assistance. Shock and grief have given way to desperation and lawlessness in some areas hardest-hit by the 8.8-magnitude earthquake. Many looters made off with food and basic supplies. Others saw an opportunity for large-scale theft, carrying away home appliances on their backs

he earthquake that killed more than 700 people in Chile on Feb. 27 probably shifted the Earth’s axis and shortened the day, a National Aeronautics and Space Administration scientist said. Earthquakes can involve shifting hundreds of kilometers of rock by several meters, changing the distribution of mass on the planet. This affects the Earth’s rotation, said Richard Gross, a geophysicist at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, who uses a computer model to calculate the effects. “The length of the day should have gotten shorter by 1.26 microseconds (millionths of a second),” Gross, said today in an e-mailed reply...

Government Reinforced Building Codes After The Most Powerful Earthquake in Recorded History Shook Chile in 1960. Saturday's 8.8-magnitude earthquake in Chile is tied for fifth place on the list of most powerful quakes ever recorded, 500 times more powerful than the one that shook Haiti last month. Though the death toll is still rising, CBS News correspondent Elaine Quijano reports lessons learned decades ago will prevent the casualties in Chile from reaching anywhere near the estimated 220,000 killed in Haiti. Unlike in Haiti, the epicenter of Saturday's quake was 70 miles off Chile's coast, far from big cities. Also, the...

Taiwanese disappointed not to see a tsunami Feb 28, 2010, 12:28 GMT Taipei - While people in many countries worried that the tsunami caused by Saturday's earthquake in Chile might strike their region, some Taiwanese were disappointed Sunday when no tsunami occurred in Taiwan. The TV channel CTI showed thrill-seeking Taiwanese waiting on the east coast for the tsunami which the Pacific Tsunami Warning Centre had predicted would arrive at around 2:30 pm (0630 GMT). Holding cameras and binoculars, the holidays makers - some bringing along their children - waited on the shore for hours, but were disappointed when no...

The worst damage appears to be in the coastal town of Constitucion, some 70 kilometers north of Pelluhue. Houses a half-kilometer from the beach were filled with water, mud and sand. Water marks were visible on walls 10 blocks from the shoreline. According to a local firefighter, 80 people have been confirmed dead. The town has also seen widespread looting as panicked residents search for food, water and basic necessities. The Unimarc supermarket was completely ransacked, and a fire that the firefighter said was intentionally set was burning in the basement. Karen Espinoza, owner of a bakery that was completely...

NEW DELHI, FEB. 1. Could the tsunami that hit the Indian coast impact global climate? Scientists at ISRO have found that the temperature over a vast stretch of the Indian Ocean had cooled significantly around the same time the tsunami struck, raising the question whether it could have a cascading impact on the atmosphere and consequently the climate across the world. Speaking to The Hindu , Vijay K. Agarwal of ISRO's Space Application Centre in Ahmedabad, said data collected by a satellite operated by the U.S. and Japan, which were consequently corroborated by information from a data buoy on the...