TSUNAMI WARNING as 8.2 EARTHQUAKE Hits CHILE - Could This Lead To Yellostone Eruption?

Widespread evacuations ordered and deaths reported as big quake out in ocean sends waves surging towards mainland

A powerful magnitude 8.2 earthquake struck off Chile's northern coast on Tuesday night, causing landslides and sparking a tsunami alert that led to an evacuation of coastal areas.

The government reported five deaths and several serious injuries. Landslides blocked roads in some areas, power failed for thousands, an airport was damaged and several businesses caught fire. Thousands of people were spending the night sleeping rough in the hills and a tsunami advisory was issued for Hawaii out in the Pacific Ocean as waves fanned out from the epicentre.

About 300 inmates escaped from a women's prison in the city of Iquique and officials said Chile's military was sending a planeload of special forces to guard against looting.

In the city of Arica the mayor reported homes were destroyed. The quake shook modern buildings in nearby Peru and in Bolivia's high altitude capital of La Paz.

The Iquique governor, Gonzalo Prieto, told Radio Cooperativa that two people were known to have died after the quake hit at 8.46pm and several others had serious injuries. The mayor of Tarapaca attributed the deaths to heart attacks.

Hours later tsunami warnings or watches remained in effect for the coasts of Peru and Chile but were lifted for elsewhere, the Pacific Tsunami Warning Centre said. "We regard the coast line of Chile as still dangerous, so we're maintaining the warning," geophysicist Gerard Fryer told the Associated Press.

Chilean authorities said their warning would stay in force through the night.

The US geological survey initially reported the quake at 8.0 but later upgraded the magnitude. It said the quake struck 61 miles (99km) north-west of the Chilean city of Iquique at 8.46pm, hitting a region that has been rocked by numerous quakes over the past two weeks.
epicenter
At least eight strong aftershocks followed in the first few hours, including one measuring 6.2. More aftershocks and even a larger quake could not be ruled out
Some roads in northern Chile were reportedly blocked by landslides, causing traffic jams among people leaving the coast. Coastal residents of northern Chile evacuated calmly as waves measuring almost two metres (six and a half feet) struck their cities ahead of a tsunami that was expected to come ashore later

"This segment in Chile had not broken since 1877," said Allmendinger, a geology expert who has extensively studied the northern Chilean fault zone. "It had been quiet for an unusually long period of time."

But the 8.2 earthquake, which seismologists said struck about 950 miles north of Chile's capital, Santiago, wasn't powerful enough to release all the friction that had been built up in this zone, where the Nazca plate is sliding underneath the South America plate, Allmendinger said.

"It's probably not big enough to have released all of the energy that had been stored up along that locked plate boundary for the last 140 years or so," Allmendinger said. "Is this the Big One for that area? Or was it a foreshock to a presumably an even bigger earthquake?"

Scientists can't predict earthquakes, although there has been a pattern of smaller earthquakes preceding a magnitude 9.0

For instance, Allmendinger said, there were strong earthquakes before the world's most powerful temblor on record, a 9.5 earthquake off southern Chile in 1960 that killed thousands and sent damaging tsunami to Haiwaii, Japan, the Philippines and the U.S. West Coast.

And before the 2011 Japan tsunami, there was a magnitude 7.3 earthquake that turned out to be a foreshock of the magnitude 9.0 earthquake.

A number of bloggers are posting videos that show bison and other animals allegedly leaving Yellowstone National Park, prompting theories that as earthquakes ramp up the seismic activity will set off the Yellowstone supervolcano.

Two of the main bloggers behind the discussion stress that there's no way to know when the supervolcano will go off but note that the 4.8 magnitude earthquake that hit on March 30 seemed to set off a reaction from the animals, who are moving for a reason.