SANTIAGO – Seismologists have warned that Chile’s capital city Santiago may be hit by a very powerful earthquake in the near future.
According to the scientists, “powerful earthquakes in South America are a result of the submersion of the oceanic Nazca Plate under the continent at a high speed, about 80 millimeters per year.”
For example, the American Cordillera, a chain of mountain ranges covering several regions in North, South and Central America are a result of the collision of oceanic and continental plates.
Nowadays, residents of the western regions of South America have to cope with the consequences of this collision.
Every year, there are powerful earthquakes that are caused by the accumulation of tectonic tension in those areas where the plates “scratch” each other. The release of the energy leads to powerful earthquakes.
Examining the most powerful earthquakes with a magnitude of 8.3 points, experts came to an alarming conclusion.
“It turned out that in fact, in all regions in central Chile, large shocks occurred fairly regularly, with a frequency of about 60 to 80 years,” reads the Earth and Planetary Science Letters journal.
Seismologist Emile Klein from Strasbourg University (France) and his colleagues found out that the next powerful earthquake could soon occur near Santiago, the Sputnik reported.
