Breaking News earthquake hits Chile,12 dead sparks tsunami alert dangerous waves threaten countries

Feb. 27, 2010 - PRLog -- breaking news
NBC, msnbc.com and news services
updated 11:40 a.m. ET, Sat., Feb. 27, 2010
SANTIAGO, Chile - A devastating magnitude 8.8 earthquake struck Chile early Saturday, toppling homes, collapsing bridges and spawning a tsunami that threatened every nation around the Pacific Ocean — roughly a quarter of the globe.

Chileans near the epicenter were tossed about as if shaken by a giant. It was the strongest earthquake to hit the country in 50 years and one of the strongest ever measured anywhere. President-elect Sebastian Pinera said more than 120 people died, but the death toll was rising quickly.

Local radio reported up to 150 could have been killed or hurt in a collapsed 14-story building in the hard-hit Concepcion, where firemen were working to put out fires throughout the city. One fire was in the science department in the local university.

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Buildings were damaged in the capital Santiago, more than 200 miles away from the epicenter.

The U.S. Geological Survey said the earthquake struck 56 miles northeast of the city of Concepcion at a depth of 22 miles at 3:34 a.m. (1:34 a.m. ET). It was felt in Buenos Aires, Argentina, which is located more than 800 miles away.

Jessica Sigala, a geophysicist with the USGS told NBC News that the quake released 500 times more energy than the than the one that hit Port-au-Prince, Haiti, on Jan 12.

Blazing buildings
At least 23 aftershocks were reported, including one registering at 6.9 on the Richter scale.

TV Chile reported that a 15-story building collapsed in Concepcion, where buildings caught fire, bridges collapsed and cracks opened up in the streets. Cars turned upside down lay scattered on one damaged highway bridge.

In the town of Talca, about 65 miles from the epicenter, Associated Press journalist Roberto Candia said it felt as if a giant had grabbed him and shaken him.


Map locates offshore epicenter in Chile
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The town's historic center, filled with buildings of adobe mud and straw, largely collapsed, though most of those were businesses that were not inhabited when the quake struck. Neighbors pulled at least five people from the rubble while emergency workers, themselves disoriented, asked for information from reporters.

Many roads were destroyed, and electricity, water and phone lines were cut to many areas — meaning there was no word of death or damage from many outlying areas.

In the capital of Santiago, 200 miles northeast of the epicenter, a car dangled from a collapsed overpass, the national Fine Arts Museum was badly damaged and an apartment building's two-story parking lot pancaked, smashing about 50 cars whose alarms rang incessantly.

Jen Ross, a journalist based in Santiago, told NBC's TODAY that she felt "three minutes of shaking".

Experts warned that   a tsunami could strike anywhere in the Pacific, and Hawaii could face its largest waves since 1964 starting at 11:19 a.m. (4:19 p.m. EST), according to Charles McCreery, director of the Pacific Tsunami Warning Center.

"Urgent action should be taken to protect lives and property," the Warning Center said in a bulletin. "All shores are at risk no matter which direction they face."

Slideshow


 Earthquake rocks Chile
A devastating magnitude-8.8 earthquake struck Chile early Saturday, setting off a tsunami that threatened every nation around the Pacific Ocean.
more photos


Tsunami waves were likely to hit Asian, Australian and New Zealand shores within 24 hours of the earthquake. The U.S. West Coast and Alaska, too, were threatened.

Reuters reported that a tsunami caused by the quake caused "serious damage" to Chile's sparsely populated Juan Fernández Islands, where Scottish sailor Alexander Selkirk was marooned in the 18th Century inspiring the novel Robinson Crusoe.

Santiago's international airport was closed for at least 24 hours as the quake destroyed passenger walkways and shook glass out of doors and windows.

In the moments after the quake, people streamed onto the streets of the capital, hugging each other and crying.

Broadcaster TVN reported that several hospitals had suffered structural damage and had been evacuated.

'It's like the end of the world'
"Never in my life have I experienced a quake like this, it's like the end of the world," one man told local television from the city of Temuco, where the quake damaged buildings.

Simon Shalders, who lives in Santiago, told Sky News: "There was a lot of movement. The houses were really shaking, walls were moving backwards and forwards, and doors were swinging open.

"Santiago has got a history of earthquakes and basically there's not a lot of old construction in Santiago because of these earthquakes.

"The new buildings in Santiago are designed to withstand fairly strong quakes and they probably held up pretty well."

There were blackouts in parts of Santiago and communications were still down in the area closest to the epicenter.


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Santiago resident Leo Perioto told CNN that "windows were wobbling a lot" in his six-story building.



"The whole building was shaking," he added. "We could feel the walls moving from side to side."

An earthquake of magnitude 8 or over can cause "tremendous damage," the USGS said. The quake that devastated Port-au-Prince on Jan. 12 was rated magnitude 7.

According to a 2002 census, Concepcion is one of the largest cities in Chile with a population of around 670,000.

In 1960, Chile was hit by the world's biggest earthquake since records dating back to 1900.

The 9.5 magnitude quake devastated the south-central city of Valdivia, killing 1,655 people and sending a tsunami which battered Easter Island 2,300 miles off Chile's Pacific seaboard and continued as far as Hawaii, Japan and the Philippines.

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