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Essay On Chilean Earthquake

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People tremble when they hear the word; destruction, and tragedy: all words that come to mind when “earthquake” is heard. Earthquake is a natural calamity that has the power to destroy human lives in a few seconds; it is responsible for the huge damage to living and non-living things. It occurs without warning and can cause millions of money in destruction and deaths and also it is one of the most unpredictable and devastating occurrences Mother Nature dishes out. There is a sudden slip in the earth’s crust, which makes the earth shake causing mass destruction to buildings and people in the surrounding areas. These areas in the earth’s crust are called faults; the ground bends to a certain limit until the point of breaking, when it finally snaps, it sends vibrations up to …show more content…

The world’s largest earthquake occurred on May 22, 1960 near Valdivia, in southern Chile. It was a magnitude of 9.5; it is refereed to as the “Great Chilean Earthquake” and the “1960 Valdivia Earthquake”. Before the Great Chilean earthquake, three earthquakes stuck Chile which were a fore-shock to the main event and are known as the “1960 Concepción earthquakes”; the first earthquake struck on 21st May 1960 it had a magnitude of 8.1 and lasted for about 35 seconds which destroyed a third of the buildings and city of Concepción in Chile. The second happened the following day with a magnitude of 6.8, while the third was a 7.9 magnitude on May 22, just 15 minutes before the Valdivia earthquake (Anirudh, 2016). In the case of this enormous earthquake, the subduction (downward movement) of the Nazca plate under the the South American continent is what caused the major quake back in 1960. In fact, the Nazca plate continues to dive down below the continent and it's this constant slow movement (with some occasional rapid shifts leading to big jolts) that creates earthquakes throughout that region (Extreme

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