Chile quake one of strongest on record

Joseph Schuman

The 8.8-magnitude earthquake that struck off the coast of Chile early this morning toppled buildings, cut roads, power lines and telecommunication, and set off tsunami warnings that sent people scrambling for higher ground from China to Hawaii.

Experts said the quake was one of the strongest ever measured in the world and was the most powerful temblor to hit quake-ridden Chile in half a century.

"The village was destroyed by the waves, including the historic cemetery. I would say that 20 or 30 percent has disappeared", Pedro Forteza, a pilot who often flies to the area, told the AP.

In a televised address, Bachelet said 1.5 million people were affected by the earthquake. Officials in her administration told AP 500,000 homes were severely damaged.

President Barack Obama said that early reports to the White House suggested "hundreds of lives" have been lost in Chile and that "damage is severe." Speaking on the White House lawn, Obama said he called Bachelet to let her know the U.S. is standing by to help with "rescue and recovery efforts," but Bachelet said earlier that Chile was not seeking foreign assistance.

The Chilean Government shut down airports for at least 24 hours and suspended subway service in Santiago, the capital, about 200 miles from the epicenter, while pictures from Chile showed bridges collapsed, highways severed and trucks, cars and buses flung from the streets where they were traveling when the quake hit. The government was urging Chileans to limit travel as much as possible.

"Never in my life have I experienced a quake like this, it's like the end of the world," Reuters quoted a survivor as telling local TV in the city of Temuco.

Aerial footage relayed by CNN from Chilean television showed several, more modern areas of Santiago looking untouched, while pictures from elsewhere in the city showed rubble in the streets, walls knocked down and houses and apartment buildings partially crumbled. Witnesses told the AP that historic adobe mud-and-straw buildings in the village of Talca, closer to the epicenter, were leveled by the earthquake but that victims were able to escape from the rubble.

Other reports from the city of Concepcion, just 70 miles from the epicenter, suggested damage was far worse there.

Several hospitals had been evacuated because of quake damage, and there was no official tally of the injured, Bachelet said. "The system is functioning.

People should remain calm. We're doing everything we can with all the forces we have," she said.

The Nazca tectonic plate under the eastern Pacific Ocean thrust under the South American plate at 3:34 a.m. local time, according to the US Geological Survey, tossing Chileans for 90 seconds with a force about 500 times more powerful than the earthquake that devastated Haiti last month.

But at more than 21 miles beneath the surface, the quake off the Maule region of Chile was more than three times deeper than Haiti's 7.0-magnitude earthquake, potentially diminishing the effects, while significantly stronger Chilean construction codes and a more modest population density suggest Chile won't suffer as much.