It filled a long-recognised 'seismic gap' off northern Chile — a stretch of fault scientists had watched and waited on for over a century.
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DownloadThe 2014 Iquique earthquake struck on April 1, 2014, registering magnitude 8.2 (moment magnitude, Mw). Each whole step on the moment-magnitude scale is roughly 32 times more energy, so this released on the order of 1,995× the energy of a magnitude 6.0 earthquake.
Its epicenter was located near 19.61°S, 70.77°W, at a depth of about 25 km — a shallow crustal earthquake. Shallow earthquakes like this release their energy close to the surface, which is why the shaking near the epicenter was so violent.
An estimated 7 people were killed.