BREAKING NEWS: Major 7.2 magnitude earthquake hits Chile !

Sun Jan 02, 2011 11:11 pm » by **Kris75**

Major 7.2 magnitude earthquake hits Chile

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – A major earthquake of 7.2 magnitude hit central Chile on Sunday, the U.S. Geological Survey said.

The epicenter was 60 miles northwest of Temuco at a depth of 20.5 miles, it said.

"No destructive widespread tsunami threat exists based on historical and tsunami data," said the Hawaii-based Tsunami Center.

Chile, the world's top copper producer, has seen its economy surge on the heavy spending to rebuild cities ravaged by a quake in February last year and record prices for its main export.

SOURCE
http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20110102/wl_ ... uake_chile

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Sun Jan 02, 2011 11:17 pm » by **Maxzen2004**

Argentina had a 7.0 but no report on that!

Sun Jan 02, 2011 11:20 pm » by **Kris75**

maxzen2004 wrote:Argentina had a 7.0 but no report on that!

Northern Argentina hit by 7.0 quake
Posted Sun Jan 2, 2011 7:30am AEDT

A strong earthquake measuring 7.0-magnitude hit a sparsely populated region of northern Argentina early on Saturday (local time), officials said.

The epicentre of the tremor, which occurred at 6:56am, was located 160 kilometres north-east of the city of Santiago del Estero, according to the US Geological Survey (USGS).

There were no immediate reports of casualties or damage after the quake, which occurred at a depth of 583.6 kilometres.

Seismologist Marcelo Pena, from the Argentine national earthquake institute Inpres, said because the earthquake was so deep below the earth's surface, it only registered at a magnitude of around 2.0 to 3.0.

He said the epicentre of the quake was 40 kilometres from the town of Campo Gallo in northern Santiago del Estero province, a desert region with only about 5,000 residents.

The reading was based on the open-ended Moment Magnitude scale, now used by US seismologists, which measures the area of the fault that ruptured and the total energy released.

The same quake jolted parts of the north of neighbouring Chile, particularly the town of Socaire, near San Pedro de Atacama, Chile's National Emergency Office reported.

There were no immediate reports of damage, infrastructure problems or injuries in Chile.

- AFP

source
http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2011 ... ion=justin

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