| Irish Times | - |
Children
sleep in the open in an elevated area in the city of Iquique, northern
Chile, in expectation of further tremors this week.
Chile hit by strong 7.6-magnitude quake aftershock
Precautionary tsunami alert along coast and in neighbouring Peru called off
Children
sleep in the open in an elevated area in the city of Iquique, northern
Chile, in expectation of further tremors this week. Photograph: Felipe
Trueba/EPA
A powerful 7.6-magnitude earthquake struck off northern Chile
late yesterday in the wake of the fatal major quake on Tuesday, but
there were no reports of damage and a precautionary tsunami alert along
the coast and in neighbouring Peru was called off.
It was the strongest of several aftershocks
that followed the 8.2-magnitude quake blamed for six deaths in the same
region on Tuesday.
Chile’s emergency office Onemi said there were no initial reports of casualties or serious damage from the latest quake.
Thousands return home after Chile earthquake
At least five dead after earthquake off northern Chile
President Michelle Bachelet, who had gone to the area to inspect the damage from the earlier quake, was evacuated from her hotel in the city of Arica.
“I was evacuated like all the citizens and we
have come here (to Arica’s emergency office) to see if there is any way
we can help,” she said late last night.
The area is home to many of the biggest mines in Chile, the world’s top copper producer.
A spokeswoman for Glencore Xstrata’s and Anglo
American’s Collahausi mine said the “process of normalisation” it was
following after Tuesday’s quake was continuing without problems.
Other mines could not immediately be reached for comment, but they were generally unaffected by Tuesday’s stronger quake.
Chile’s arid, mineral-rich north is sparsely
populated, with most of the population concentrated in the port towns of
Iquique and Arica, near the Peruvian border.
The new quake was located 12 miles (19 km)
south of Iquique at a relatively shallow depth of 12.4 miles (20 km),
the US Geological Survey said.
The Pacific Tsunami Warning Center said while
there was no widespread tsunami threat, the latest tremor could generate
a local tsunami.
The ports of Iquique, Arica, Patache and Tocopilla remained closed early on Thursday. Some of them ship metals, suggesting exports and trade flows may be disrupted.
The bigger earthquake on Tuesday triggered a tsunami with 2m (7ft) waves and officials said it caused six deaths.
More than 2,600 homes were damaged and fishing
boats along the northern coast were smashed up. However, most
infrastructure held up.
Chile is one of the most earthquake-prone areas
of the world. In 1960, southern Chile was hit by a 9.5 quake, the
strongest in modern history.
Ms Bachelet, who was sworn in as president less
than a month ago, is conscious of the stinging criticism she faced near
the end of her first term in office in 2010, when her government was
seen to have responded inadequately to a massive 8.8-magnitude quake and
tsunami that killed 526 people.
Residents in the area of the latest quakes have been expecting “the big one” for many years. The Nazca
and South American tectonic plates rub up against each other just off
the coast of Iquique, where a “seismic gap” has been building up.
An unusually large number of tremors in the
area in recent weeks had led authorities to reinforce emergency
procedures, while residents bought rations and prepared for an eventual
evacuation.
However, the mega-quake they had been fearing may still be yet to happen, said Paul Earle, a seismologist at the US Geological Survey National Earthquake Information Center.
“[Tuesday’s] earthquake was not large enough to
release the stress on the whole area where they believe the seismic gap
is,” he said earlier yesterday. “It’s going to take some time to
evaluate the effect of this earthquake on that region. But people should
stay prepared.”
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