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What's Shaking in Chile

Very exciting update here in Chile!! Just last night I got to experience my first ever earthquake!! Since arriving here there have been a couple of small tremors but nothing worth writing home about. Until on Saturday night the 22nd of April there was a 6.2 quake with an epicenter in Valparaiso. 6.2 would generally be considered a pretty serious earthquake.

The scale for measuring earthquake (The Richter Scale) classifies them 1-10 and each number illustrates exponential worsening. 6-7 level is considered to be a strong quake. However, in Chile they say that this scale is very different. Chile is one for the most earthquake prone countries in the world and the location of the largest quake on record, a 9.5, in Valdivia, Chile in 1960. Chileans will proudly tell you that well in order places anything over a 5 point earthquake is something to talk about, here you need to hit at least 7 to make it on anyone’s radar.

The reason that Chilean’s have their own scale is how prepared they are in this country for earthquake. Since the devastating quake in Valparaiso in the 1800s hundreds when much of the city was leveled the Chileans have focused on building more sustainable structures. They are very careful with construction to build with materials that flexible rather than rigid allowing the buildings to sway rather than break. This is a very impressive engineering feat and it was been enacted very effectively throughout the country, especially considering that Chile is not considered fully developed.

But Chileans have not only focused on good construction but on educating their citizens, after the earth quake of 2010 about 500 deaths were reports, and while that number is significantly smaller than it would have been in a country which was less prepared it was in great part due to a lack of education. Many people by the beaches did not know to expect the possibility of a tsunami and thus stayed out by the ocean as it receded and were killed when the wave came in. Since there was has been a significant focus on education and in the most recent over 8 point quake in 2011, there were only 11 deaths total. A truly impressive number.

For me, Saturday’s earthquake didn’t feel like two much, the furniture and floor in my host house shook for about 10 seconds and not much more. Some of my friends mentioned that it was strong enough to wake them up from sleep, which is pretty impressive. Chile is very lucky that 6.3 on the Richter scale is able to be brushed off so easily and I consider myself pretty lucky to get to experience it!!