The Ring of Fire strikes again, just five years after the magnitude 8.8 quake that devastated Concepción, Arauco and Coronel.
Tsunami advisories are in effect for Hawaii and Southern California after a powerful magnitude-8.3 earthquake struck the Pacific Ocean waters just off the coast of Chile Wednesday afternoon, generating a dangerous 15-foot tsunami along parts of the Chilean coast. Two people are reported dead in Chile from incidents related to the earthquake, and extensive damage has been reported....
The U.S. Geological Survey said the main shock struck at 7:54 p.m. Chile time (6:54 p.m. EDT in the U.S.) about thirty-four miles (fifty-four kilometers) west of Illapel, Chile, or about 145 miles (233 km) north-northwest of Santiago, Chile's largest city. It is the planet's strongest quake of 2015 thus far.
Officials in Chile issued a tsunami warning for the entire coastline of the country, advising everyone near the coast to move to higher ground.
Shaking was reported in Santiago and across most of central Chile.
This is another subduction zone quake, triggered by the Nazca tectonic plate plunging beneath the South American tectonic plate. Which cannot help drawing my attention to the similar geologic structure approximately two hundred miles to the west of where I'm clackety-clacking these words out right now....
....and its comparable seismic power.
The difference between Chile and my neck of the woods? There hasn't been a temblor on the Cascade Subduction Zone for over three hundred years. And major events on the CSZ historically take place on the average of once every....three hundred years.
On the bright side, a massive natural disaster up here would take my mind off of scrambling to find an assisted living destination for my dad, which is taking my mind off of my inexorable financial decline and the murder of my career. As the "new Scotty" said in the first Abrams Trek movie, "It's exciting!"
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