Quote:
Originally Posted by Villavic
Peruvian coast is a quake zone. ACtually I think is almost the same "San Andreas" fault that extends to South America.
We just had a big earthquake in august. The sea hit the coast but fortunately not that big. The town (Pisco) near the epicenter did suffer more than Lima, the capital where I live.
I live 3 blocks from the shore but fortunately my neighborhood is over a 80 meters cliff so I think that would protect us from big waves. but that's only the main part of Lima, the rest of the coast could suffer from a strong tsunami, like in 2001 when an earthquake hit Arequipa, south of Peru. There was a tsunami at its coast, reaching several towns, houses.
|
The Peru-Chile Subduction Zone is right off the west coast of South America. It's BIG. In fact, it's the cause of the biggest earthquake ever measured on Earth (1960's magnitude 9.5). Like all oceanic subduction zones (Sumatra, Cascadia, etc.), it creates tsunamis powerful enough to cross the entire ocean basin.
The Valdivia (or Great Chilean) Earthquake of 1960 created a tsunami that hit Chile, Peru, Hawaii, Japan, the Philippines, New Zealand, southeast Australia, & the Aleutian Islands, & tide disturbances were recorded on gauges in California, Oregon, Washington & western Canada. The death toll was in the thousands.
http://pubs.usgs.gov/circ/c1187/
