Chile - Another Earthquake?

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Im a Chilean and I can tell you... This country is divided in 15 regions (can be called states in a way) Well 7 of the 15 were affected by the earthquake, the Regions of Maule and Bio Bio are the most affected ones, Most of the cities in both regions are basically gone, We had a Tsunami that hit one of This country's Archipelagos' coastline, Juan Fernandez and yeah Several Buldings and Avenues in our Capital, Santiago, Are Heavily Damaged plus there are some parts that have no Electricity or Water.

We've been feeling a lot of tremors all day and we fear the fact another one might be coming soon.. (hopefully not).

As you all know (or most of you) This started at 3:34 am... when everyone was sleeping..

I want to share my expierence.

I was working on my Lvl then the electricity was cut (I think you guys call it Blackout) , I went to the Window to see Outside trying to figure out what was happening?.. Then I felt the floor.. It was moving! ..I had no time to think.. but to act, I yelled at my brother "Hey, The floor's moving, We gotta go outside right now!" so we did. We Grabbed His cellphone and the keys and we went downstairs, During this, I felt how the house started to move faster. Once we were in the First floor, We opened the door and went outside...Then I saw the lights in the Sky (Electric Generators "exploding")
The best thing My bro and I could do, was to cling to a tree and wait for the Earthquake to stop... While waiting... I saw my surroundings.. and I could see people running, the lights in the sky, the screams and yeah ..the Earthquake's strengh... It lasted hours!..Or thats what I felt... And Finally, The earthquake was over...

That's how I lived it and How many Chileans Did.

Note: When I was writting this, I felt a Big Tremor
Edit: Over 300 Deads :/
edit2: Excuse the grammar.. D:
 
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I hope recovery goes well for you Nightmare cenz.

Japan is apparently an hour 1 way from 9 foot waves hitting it's coast now.
 
Wow, this is drastic! I would hate to live in Chile when that happened! It's a good thing my friend took a trip to Chile before this occurance.
 
From what I heard, considering what Chile usually gets, the earthquake wasn't that bad. One of the pros about having buildings built to resist such things.
 
If you looked at Concepcion's Current State you'd see how bad 8.8 is...
(thats a city in the southern part of Chile)
 
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8.8 is an insanely strong earthquake, but it won't likely be anywhere near as bad as Haiti simply because Chile has building codes and a working government, unlike Haiti. This is the advantage of living in an area that is actually prepared for such things, even though there's no question the damage will be pretty extreme.
 
Just to clarify, for those who don't know how the Richter scale works, 8.8 is a phenominal Earthquake. As the Richter scale rises, one number is about ten times as powerful as the one before, so, the Haiti earthquake was recorded to be 7.0 on the scale, while this earthquake is recorded to be over 8.0, so it is at least 10 times stronger. I don't know the exact numbers on the scaling of the richter scale though.

Although, the buildings in Chile are, as far as I know, built with Earthquakes in mind so they won't crumble as easily under pressure. But 8.8 is strong enough to knock life safe buildings down anyway I imagine, reinforced corners can only do so much.
 
Whackjood said:
JAs the Richter scale rises, one number is about ten times as powerful as the one before, so, the Haiti earthquake was recorded to be 7.0 on the scale, while this earthquake is recorded to be over 8.0, so it is at least 10 times stronger. I don't know the exact numbers on the scaling of the richter scale though.
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Oh, it's much stronger. It released 500 times as much energy.
 
What is with the earthquakes lately? 2 earthquakes in 2 months time. They are getting bad. I'm worried about the tsunami because I have family who lives there.
 
MasterJace said:
From what I heard, considering what Chile usually gets, the earthquake wasn't that bad. One of the pros about having buildings built to resist such things.
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This was no ordinary earthquake. In general, the damage caused by an earthquake depends on more than just its magnitude (depth of focus, duration of shakings, number and intensity of aftershocks, etc.), but any earthquake of magnitude 8.8 is going to be enormous no matter what. I think that's at least fifty times more powerful than the earthquake in Haiti. But of course, Chile isn't anywhere near as impoverished and most of its buildings are up to code and earthquake-resistant, but that's still huge, and it caused a ton of damage.

Incidentally, the strongest earthquake in recorded human history was also in Chile. It measured 9.5 on the Richter scale.
 
WEREHOG said:
What is with the earthquakes lately? 2 earthquakes in 2 months time. They are getting bad. I'm worried about the tsunami because I have family who lives there.
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Earthquakes happen all the time it's just that we've had two rather large ones in populated regions this year. Look at this map! 311 Earthquakes in the world within the last week are on that map!
 
As some people said, most of buildings here are up to code and earthquake resistant but, Ironically, old Buldings resisted this earthquake more than the new ones (Some are even falling apart).

akirahedgehog said:
Earthquakes happen all the time it's just that we've had two rather large ones in populated regions this year. Look at this map! 311 Earthquakes in the world within the last week are on that map!
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Most of those earthquakes happened in the Ring of Fire.
 
nightmare cenz said:
As some people said, most of buildings here are up to code and earthquake resistant but, Ironically, old Buldings resisted this earthquake more than the new ones (Some are even falling apart).
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While this sounds ironic, frequently this is just because that the old buildings that are still around happen to have been built in such a way that they don't easily fall, because if they hadn't been they wouldn't still be there. If a building has been around for over a century and is still standing in an earthquake-prone area, it's likely pretty good at surviving earthquakes. All the other buildings built at the same time that aren't earthquake-resistant have already collapsed, after all.

The new buildings may have been built to code, but that doesn't necessarily mean they'll actually survive when push comes to shove. The materials might have a structural weakness or other problem that causes them to fail when the earthquake actually happens. You can plan for the event all you'd like, but natural disasters don't tend to be very forgiving on even minor mistakes.
 
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