A
powerful magnitude-8.2 earthquake struck off northern Chile on Tuesday night,
setting off a small tsunami that forced evacuations along the country's entire
Pacific coast.
The
quake also shook modern buildings in nearby Peru and in Bolivia's high altitude
capital of La Paz.
Chile's
Emergency Office said its tsunami watch would remain in effect for six more
hours, meaning hundreds of thousands of people along the coast would not sleep
in their beds. Swimmers and surfers in the U.S. state of Hawaii, thousands of
miles away in the Pacific, might see higher waves Wednesday, the warning center
said.
The
strongest earthquake ever recorded on Earth also happened in Chile — a
magnitude-9.5 tremor in 1960 that killed more than 5,000 people.
Chile
is the world's leading copper producing nation, and most of its mining industry
is in the northern regions. Top mining companies said there was no serious
damage to their operations so far.
culled from Yahoo.com
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