Chile Earthquake, Tsunami Warnings: The Science of Disaster

Feb. 28, 2010 — -- A day after Chile's great earthquake, the ground is still shaking, remnants of the resulting tsunami still slosh across the Pacific -- and there is not a geologist alive who is truly surprised that the catastrophe happened where it did.

Chile is right on the "ring of fire" -- the fault lines, all around the perimeter of the Pacific Ocean, that make for some of the most violent and frequent earthquakes on the planet.

The one that struck on Saturday morning will probably rank sixth on the list kept by the U.S. Geological Survey of the worst earthquakes since 1900.

Just off the Chilean coast, one giant plate of the earth's crust is pushing against the one that holds up South America. It is what geologists call a subduction zone, where one tectonic plate is trying to slide under another, and tremendous tension has built up in the ground.

On Saturday the ground gave way -- violently.

"These regions of the earth are capable of producing the largest-magnitude earthquakes in the world, as you've seen in this magnitude 8.8," said Paul Earle, a seismologist with the U.S. Geological Survey, in an interview with ABC News.

"This particular fault, this is a huge earthquake -- this ruptured an area of about 400-500 km [300-400 miles]," said Earle.

The epicenter of Saturday's earthquake was only about 140 miles north of the single strongest earthquake recorded in modern times. A quake of magnitude 9.5 struck on May 22, 1960, also off the coast of Chile, killing 1,655 people, injuring 3,000 and leaving another 2 million homeless. It set of a tsunami far more destructive than Saturday's; 61 people died in Hawaii and at least 138 in Japan.

If there was anything to soften the blow on Saturday, it was that the center of the earthquake was 60 miles out at sea. Also important is that Chile, which has been hit so hard before, mandates the construction of buildings that are more likely to survive an earthquake.

That is in sharp contrast to last month's disaster in Haiti, where the government has put the death toll at 220,000 and the precise number will never be known.