The 1960 Chile Earthquake

The 1960 Chile Earthquake

The most powerful earthquake ever recorded struck near Valdivia, Chile on May 22, 1960, at 2:11 PM local time. As many as 6,000 people were killed. Many more would have been, had it not been for Chile’s preparedness for earthquakes, and the remote location of the epicenter.Eyewitnesses reported that the entire world appeared as if God had seized one end of it like a rope, and slung it as hard as he could. 40% of the houses in Valdivia were razed to the ground. Cordon Caulle, a nearby active volcano, was ripped open and forced to erupt.The quake measured 9.5 in magnitude, and 35 foot high waves were recorded 6,000 miles away. Of all the seismic energy of the 20th Century, including the 2004 Indian Ocean quake, 25% was concentrated in the 1960 Chile quake.It caused 82 foot high waves to travel down the Chilean coast. Hilo, Hawaii was destroyed. The quake possessed twice the surface energy yield the 2004 Indian Ocean quake, and equalled 178 billion tons of TNT. This would have powered the entire United States, at 2005 energy consumption levels, for 740 years.

The 2003 European Heat Wave

Canicule Europe 2003Europe is not accustomed to hot summers. Give them a break, hot summers almost never happen there. But in 2003, they got hit with one that would make the southeastern United States, or the Australian outback sit back and marvel.This lister is from North Carolina, where hot summers are expected and prepared for. In Europe, most of the homes built within the last 50 years before 2003 were not equipped with air conditioners, because none had ever been needed. Now, well over half of them have equipped themselves for the future.There were at least 14,802 deaths from the heat in France alone, most of them old people in nursing homes, or in single family homes without the ability to cool off. The heat dried up most of Europe, and severe forest fires broke out in Portugal. Some 2,000 people died there from the heat.About 300 died in Germany, where the weather is usually very cold to delightfully mild; 141 in Spain, where the temperature actually gets into the 90s Fahrenheit once in a great while; 1,500 in the Netherlands. Multiple temperature records, having lasted since the 1700s, were broken, then broken again a week later: 106.7 Fahrenheit in Brono, Switzerland. This melted a lot of Alpine glaciers into flash floods. 104.7 in Bavaria, Germany. 103 in Paris. The new record in Edinburgh, Scotland is now 91.2, which is unheard of there.The wine harvest came a month early to save the grapes. 75% of Ukraine’s wheat crops were parched to death.