7.4 Quake Hits Chile; 82 Killed, 1,000 Injured

A powerful earthquake struck Chile on Sunday, killing at least 89 people and injuring about 2,000 as houses, bridges and churches filled with worshipers collapsed, officials said.

The quake was measured at 7.4 on the Richter scale by the U.S. National Earthquake Information Center in Golden, Colo.

The quake struck at 7:47 p.m. (2:47 p.m. PST) and lasted for about five minutes, officials said.

Jose Carcamo, who lives on the sixth floor of a downtown Santiago apartment building, said: “All of a sudden, this huge cloud of reddish dust came from nowhere. I thought it was the end of the world.”

Frequent Aftershocks

Within six hours, Santiago residents had felt 48 aftershocks, some of them so strong they rocked high rises. More tremors, mostly mild ones, continued well into the night in Santiago and other central Chilean cities. Thousands of people camped on blankets in the dark, debris-filled streets rather than return to their homes.

Authorities in some rural communities near Santiago advised people to stay away from their adobe homes for the night because many were cracked and could collapse in the aftershocks, they said.

Monica Garrico, a housewife who was camping with neighbors on a sidewalk in a Santiago suburb said: “Our house may collapse anytime, I think I’ll stay outside at least until daylight.”

“The walls are full of cracks,” she said.

The quake--with an epicenter believed to be about 25 miles offshore--shook an 800-mile stretch of Chile, which hugs South America’s southern Pacific coast. Santiago and the twin cities of Valparaiso and Vina del Mar--Chile’s three largest cities, with a total population of 11 million--appeared to be the hardest hit, Chile’s Government Emergency Office reported.

Felt in Argentina

People across the Andes Mountains in Argentina also felt the quake, especially the foothill cities of Mendoza, San Juan and Tucuman, but no casualties or major damage were reported. Some residents of high rise apartment buildings in Buenos Aires, 600 miles east of the Chilean border, reported slight movements.

President Augusto Pinochet cut short a visit to southern Chile and flew back to the capital Sunday night.

The government reported that the fatalities were caused mostly by falling buildings and collapsing walls. Officials said they fear that the death toll will grow as reports come in from remote places and communications are restored. At least 53 of the dead were reported in Santiago.

The governor of Santiago state, Jaime Garcia, said in a radio statement that 10 people were killed when the front sections of a church in San Bernardo, just outside Santiago, collapsed while Mass was being conducted.

Electrical power was knocked out and telephone lines were jammed in Chile, making it difficult to gather information.

The government said about 200 seriously injured people were reported at Santiago’s Central Emergency Hospital, but a telephone operator at the hospital said the number was much higher.

In Valparaiso, three people were killed when a beam fell on worshipers in a chapel. Dozens of hillside houses overlooking the port also collapsed, and troops were deployed with orders to fire on looters. A nurse at the city’s Central Clinic said that despite serious damage, the hospital was handling scores of injured people.

Danger in Tunnels

In the seaside resort of Vina del Mar, a hospital was heavily damaged and thousands of beach goers were cut off from returning to Santiago because road tunnels were closed by authorities fearing more collapses.

Santiago’s international airport closed briefly after the earthquake ripped up part of a runway. Power was lost for several hours in the capital, trapping people in elevators and causing traffic jams and accidents as traffic lights and street lamps went out.

The earthquake was the worst in the Latin American country since 1971, when a temblor killed at least 80 people and injured 245. On Oct. 16, 1981, a temblor with a reading of 7.2 struck in about the same area of Chile that was affected Sunday.

The last large earthquake in Southern California--the Sylmar quake on Feb. 9, 1971--measured 6.5 on the Richter scale. Every increase of one point on the scale--for instance from 6.5 to 7.5--represents 10 times greater ground motion.