by Erin Wayman Thursday, January 5, 2012
The last time Chile experienced an earthquake larger than magnitude 8.8 was on May 22, 1960, when a magnitude-9.5 earthquake rocked the South American nation, killing 1,655 people and leaving 2 million people homeless, according to the U.S. Geological Survey. It was the largest earthquake in recorded history. Prior to that, a magnitude-8.5 quake struck central Chile near its border with Argentina on Nov. 11, 1922 — the 13th-largest earthquake on record. The newest earthquake also made the record books: It is tied with an earthquake that hit offshore Ecuador in 1906 as the fifth-largest earthquake.
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