… Chile often has earthquakes, though not as strong as this 2010 one, so they have strict building codes for new buildings.

ET on April 15). Because Chile is located near the tectonic plates under the earths surface which when they rub together can cause earthquakes. That is, the longer the fault, the larger the earthquake. Charles Bufe and David Perkins have analysed the statistics and concluded that during the 1960s and recently there has indeed been an increased rate of earthquakes.

Concerns about a tsunami spreading across the Pacific have abated and the Chilean authorities claim they have the resources to handle the catastrophe. There is a very active subduction fault off the coast of Chile, where the Nazca plate dives underneath the South American plate (pushing up the Andes in the process). “So, the 1960 quake, despite its immense strength, must have left some strain in the underground, ” explained study lead author Dr. Dietrich Lange. The magnitude of an earthquake is related to the length of the fault on which it occurs.

Why are we having so many earthquakes recently? Why does so many earthquakes occur in Chile? The buildings then are stronger and many of them will not fall down.

At a magnitude of 8.8 on the Richter scale this is one of the most powerful earthquakes ever recorded. A fault is a break in the rocks that make up the Earth's crust, along which rocks on either side have moved past each other. So, maybe an earthquake in Chile could indeed cause a fault to slip in Japan. Chile is a hotspot for earthquakes because the Nazca plate, a tectonic plate which moves eastwards with a rate of 6.6 cm per year, collides with the South American plate off the Chilean coast. With Indonesia, the question is not whether an earthquake will occur but when.

No, earthquakes of magnitude 10 or larger cannot happen. The Southeast Asian nation is prone to quakes because it's on the Ring of …

A 7.0-magnitude earthquake struck the Kumamoto region on Japan's Kyushu Island at 1:25 a.m. local time on April 16 (12:25 p.m. Asked in Earthquakes