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Earth’s Biggest Earthquake

Reshaped Chile’s coast

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A bigger earthquake than the one that shook Chile in 1960 might have happened once. But Chile’s is the biggest ever measured by modern equipment. At magnitude 9.5, the Chilean quake of 1960 shook the earth with the force of more than 100 billion tons of TNT.

Danger Zone

Chile has been quaking for ages. It’s located on the “Ring of Fire,” a zone of dangerous volcanic and seismic activity that curves up from New Zealand along the east coast of Asia and down the west coast of the Americas. Collisions between the South American and Nazca tectonic plates created Chile’s Andes Mountains and still cause quakes today.

The granddaddy of them all happened on the afternoon of May 22, 1960. A series of large tremors had hit the day before, destroying property and causing numerous casualties. About 30 minutes before the main quake, a number of smaller “foreshocks” drove many people out of their houses and toward shelter. Those warnings kept the final death toll from the “mainshock” from being even higher than it was.

The Planet Trembles, The Ocean Roars

The quake started 100 miles (160 km) off Chile’s coast, about 200 feet (60 meters) below the floor of the Pacific Ocean. When it hit Chile, the altitude of several hundred miles of Chilean coastline shifted. Farms were plunged underwater. Docks and ports were raised or lowered by several feet. Landslides were widespread. A tsunami generated by the quake smashed into the coast. The waves reportedly reached heights of 80 feet (24 meters).

In fact, the tsunami was one of the largest ever recorded in the Pacific. Roaring across the ocean, it struck California, Hawaii, the Philippines, Australia, New Zealand, and Japan. At least 138 people died in Japan. In Hawaii, the tsunami devastated the city of Hilo, but killed only 61, thanks to an effective warning system.

Tragedy and Panic

The quake laid waste to a huge part of southern Chile. Exact totals vary according to the source, but more than 2,000 people were killed, 3,000 were injured, and some 2 million were left homeless. Many villages were completely wiped out, and larger cities like Concepción, Puerto Montt, and Valdivia were flooded and severely damaged.

Some people thought they were experiencing the effects of a nuclear war. May 1960 was a time of tension between the United States and Soviet Union. On May 7, Soviet premier Nikita Khrushchev had revealed to the world that an American pilot, Gary Powers, had been captured after his U-2 spy plane was shot down over the USSR. When the earthquake hit, some Chileans assumed that World War III had begun.

It wasn’t a war, but the quake’s effects really were global. According to seismologists, it made the entire planet vibrate like a bell for days afterward, a phenomenon called “free oscillation,” which occurs only with enormous earthquakes. And this quake was only the beginning. A series of at least nine big quakes hit Chile from May through December that year. Chileans hope they never see another such string.

–Jeffery Vail