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The 1997 Punitaqui earthquake occurred at 01:03 UTC on October 15. It had an estimated magnitude of 7.1 . This earthquake was one of the most destructive in the epicentral area compared to other events of subduction of the same size. The extensive damage to structures was the result of an amplification effect on the ground and the poor quality of building materials, this reflects the potential for damage incurred in an intraplate earthquake with vertical fault and how it can be much greater than what which can cause one of interplate of similar magnitude, and caused severe damage in Chilean cities of La Serena,
Chile lies above the
In Disaster-info.net
Earthquake details.
Vicuña
The vicuña (''Lama vicugna'') or vicuna (both , very rarely spelled ''vicugna'', its former genus name) is one of the two wild South American camelids, which live in the high alpine areas of the Andes, the other being the guanaco, which live ...
, Ovalle
Ovalle is a city in the Coquimbo Region of Chile, founded in 1831 as a settlement. It has a population of more than 113,000 people. The name Ovalle was chosen to honor to Chile's vice-president, José Tomás Ovalle. Ovalle is the capital of the ...
, Illapel
Illapel () is a Chilean city, which is the capital of the Choapa Province, Coquimbo Region. It lies along the Illapel River and marks the country's narrowest point along a parallel (94 km). It is located to the east of Los Vilos.
Administr ...
and Punitaqui
Punitaqui is a town and commune of Chile in the Limarí Province.
History
Punitaqui was once part of the Ovalle Department before the administrative restructuring of 1976.
1997 earthquake
On October 15, 1997 the town was nearly demolished by ...
.''Chile tiembla otra vez'', El Mercurio
''El Mercurio'' (known online as ''El Mercurio On-Line'', ''EMOL'') is a Chilean newspaper with editions in Valparaíso and Santiago. Its Santiago edition is considered the country's newspaper of record and it is considered the oldest daily in ...
, November 18, 2007, page D10
Tectonic setting
Chile lies above the convergent plate boundary
A convergent boundary (also known as a destructive boundary) is an area on Earth where two or more lithospheric plates collide. One plate eventually slides beneath the other, a process known as subduction. The subduction zone can be defined by a ...
where the Nazca Plate is subducting
Subduction is a geological process in which the oceanic lithosphere is recycled into the Earth's mantle at convergent boundaries. Where the oceanic lithosphere of a tectonic plate converges with the less dense lithosphere of a second plate, the ...
beneath the South American Plate, at a location where they converge at a rate of seventy millimeters a year. This quake was an oceanic interplate type, occurred in the downgoing slab of the Nazca Plate and not on the interface between the two plates. This event took place under the area of Chile, between 27° and 33° S, where the slab is nearly horizontal and there is a high degree of mechanical coupling between the plates.
The October earthquake occurred in the area of the plate interface that ruptured during the 1943 Ovalle earthquake
The Coquimbo Region of Chile was affected by a major earthquake on 6 April 1943 at 12:07 local time (16:07 UTC). It had a magnitude of between 7.9 and 8.2 on the moment magnitude scale. It triggered a minor tsunami that caused local damage al ...
, which had a magnitude of 7.9–8.3 . Other major earthquakes have occurred in the same area like the Valparaíso earthquake of August 1730, of 9.2 and the 1880 Illapel earthquake which registered a magnitude of 8.8 . This entire segment is delimited by the rupture zones of 1965 and 1971 in Aconcagua
Aconcagua () is a mountain in the Principal Cordillera of the Andes mountain range, in Mendoza Province, Argentina. It is the highest mountain in the Americas, the highest outside Asia, and the highest in the Southern Hemisphere with a summi ...
and 1906 in Valparaíso
Valparaíso (; ) is a major city, seaport, naval base, and educational centre in the commune of Valparaíso, Chile. "Greater Valparaíso" is the second largest metropolitan area in the country. Valparaíso is located about northwest of Santiago ...
to the south, while to the north by the 1922 rupture in the Atacama Region.
Damage
Punitaqui
Punitaqui is a town and commune of Chile in the Limarí Province.
History
Punitaqui was once part of the Ovalle Department before the administrative restructuring of 1976.
1997 earthquake
On October 15, 1997 the town was nearly demolished by ...
was practically demolished by the quake, where the Mercalli intensity was VII. Damage ranged from as far north as the Antofagasta Region
The Antofagasta Region ( es, Región de Antofagasta, ) is one of Chile's sixteen first-order administrative divisions. The second-largest region of Chile in area, it comprises three provinces, Antofagasta, El Loa and Tocopilla. It is bordered t ...
to the southern Araucanía Region
The Araucanía ( ), La Araucanía Region ( es, Región de La Araucanía ) is one of Chile's 16 first-order administrative divisions, and comprises two provinces: Malleco in the north and Cautín in the south. Its capital and largest city is Te ...
.
In Santiago
Santiago (, ; ), also known as Santiago de Chile, is the capital and largest city of Chile as well as one of the largest cities in the Americas. It is the center of Chile's most densely populated region, the Santiago Metropolitan Region, whos ...
, the quake felt undulating because of the distance from the epicenter
The epicenter, epicentre () or epicentrum in seismology is the point on the Earth's surface directly above a hypocenter or focus, the point where an earthquake or an underground explosion originates.
Surface damage
Before the instrumental pe ...
. Both Santiago
Santiago (, ; ), also known as Santiago de Chile, is the capital and largest city of Chile as well as one of the largest cities in the Americas. It is the center of Chile's most densely populated region, the Santiago Metropolitan Region, whos ...
and Valparaíso
Valparaíso (; ) is a major city, seaport, naval base, and educational centre in the commune of Valparaíso, Chile. "Greater Valparaíso" is the second largest metropolitan area in the country. Valparaíso is located about northwest of Santiago ...
regions
In geography, regions, otherwise referred to as zones, lands or territories, are areas that are broadly divided by physical characteristics (physical geography), human impact characteristics (human geography), and the interaction of humanity and t ...
lost telephone service and radio
Radio is the technology of signaling and communicating using radio waves. Radio waves are electromagnetic waves of frequency between 30 hertz (Hz) and 300 gigahertz (GHz). They are generated by an electronic device called a transmi ...
transmission. In La Serena, hysteria broke out, and people went into the streets as a precaution. The quake left 8 people dead, 160 injured and 10,913 homeless, concentrating most of those in the provinces of Elqui and Limarí.Earthquake details.
See also
* List of earthquakes in 1997 *List of earthquakes in Chile __NOTOC__
Chile lay in a region which is adjacent to the fast-moving Nazca Plate, and has high tectonic activity. The records for earlier centuries are apparently incomplete.
Of the world's 46 known earthquakes with M ≥ 8.5 since the year 15 ...
References
External links
* {{Earthquakes in Chile Earthquakes in ChilePunitaqui
Punitaqui is a town and commune of Chile in the Limarí Province.
History
Punitaqui was once part of the Ovalle Department before the administrative restructuring of 1976.
1997 earthquake
On October 15, 1997 the town was nearly demolished by ...
Punitaqui earthquake
Presidency of Eduardo Frei Ruiz-Tagle
1997 disasters in Chile