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Orange County High School Bullentin

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Nearly a year after a terrible earthquake struck the central-southern part of Chile, Mr Armando Araya, from the Chilean Emergency Office, Onemi, has agreed to answer our questions.

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Dorothy

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Mr Araya, first of all: how can we define an earthquake?

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Mr Araya

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An earthquake is a trembling or shaking movement of the Earth's surface. Earthqualke occur practically every day, but unless they are strong and cause damage, people don't notice them easily.

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Dorothy

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How do we know how strong an earthquake?

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Mr Araya

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To measure the intensity of an earthquake, a California seismologist named Charles F. Richter created a simple scale, which he called the magnitude, to describe the relative sizes of earthquakes. The scale is how know as the Richted Scale.

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Dorothy

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how are earthquakes classified according to that scale?

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Mr Araya

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The small earthquake qet number -2.0 and the biggest ones number 10+. Here's an example: each year, your home area, southern California, has about 10,000 eathquakes. If you put them on the scale, only about 2% are greated than magnitude 3.0, and only about 15 to 20 of them are greated than magnitude 4.0 .

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Dorothy

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So how big was the february 27, 2010 earthquake in Chile, on the Rich Scale?

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Mr Araya

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It was toward the upper end of the scale: 8.8 at the apicenter

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Dorothy

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That sound really huge! Now, the next question is: what was the 'Great Chilean Earthquake'?

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Mr Araya

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Unfortunalety for us, Chileans, it was the largest magnitude earthquake in recorded history. It took place on may 22, 1960 and its magnitude was 9.5. It killer more than 2,000 people in Valdivia alone, left 2 millions homeless, completely destroyed 58,622 houses, caused heavy damage in the cities of Concepción, Valdivia and Puerto Montt, and caused a tsunami that hit as far away as Hawaii, Japan, and the Philippines.

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Dorothy

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Can you tell is a little more about what happened in Chile 1960?

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Mr Araya

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After the tsunami, water covered large portions of land, changing the topography of the area for ever. Some 40 hours After the first shock, the Puyehue volcano erupted, adding volcanic ashes and lava to the terrible tragedy.

Although after the earthquake Valdivia and other coastal cities were carefully rebuilt, you can still see some remains of what is now known as ''the biggest earthquake of all time"

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Dorothy

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How do these two Chilean earthequakes compare?

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Mr Araya

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The earthquake in February 2010 was smaller in magnitude, but the devastation was also tremendous because it affected a bigger area of the country.

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Dorothy

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Can we predict and prevent earthquakes?

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Mr Araya

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No. Earthquake simply happend and nothing can be done to predict or prevent them. However, we can do a lot of things before, during and after they take place to limit the consequences.

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Can you name one of these things?

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It will help if the building where you are is constructed in such a way that can whitstand the shocks and movement

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Dorothy

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What can we do?

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Mr Araya

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If you are indoors, DROP and COVER; this means to fall onto the floor and get under something strong for protection. If you are outdoors, stay as far away from building as possible. If you are near glass or anything that can fall, move away quickly. If you are in a crowded area, do not run for the nearest exit; everyone will be doing that and crowding will lead to even more injuries. Be prepared for aftershocks to follow the initial earthquake; they are smaller than the first one, but still very dangerous.

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Dorothy

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Nr Araya, many thanks for helping us to learn a little bit more abour earthquake.

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Mr Araya

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I would very much like to see a copy of this interview in your school nespaper. I think that a school newspaper is a really good idea and an interview or an article trying to inform your schoomates about earthquake around the world sound great.