Virtual Earthquake Reconnaissance Team (VERT) Summary by Ericson Encina & Ana Gabriela Haro.
September 2015. University of Auckland, New Zealand.
The 8.4 Mw magnitude earthquake of Illapel could be felt in a vast region of central and northern Chile (Earthquake intensity), Argentina (Clarín Newspaper, INPRESS Agency) and Uruguay (El País Newspaper). People who experienced the quake remarked its long duration and its movement features as slow and sinuous (links provided at the end of the post).
Personally, I (Ericson) was in Chile when the earthquake and the aftershocks struck, I was in Santiago on a second floor of a residential house. The house’s structure is based on confined masonry for the first floor and wood for the second one. Despite its magnitude, the Illapel’s earthquake felt different than what I was used to in Chile. From my experience (I’m Chilean) on previous quakes a typical Chilean earthquake, of similar magnitude, has high accelerations and displacements and the strong motion has a relatively short duration. In this case, the main quake particularly lasted longer and the movement was rather slow and somewhat constant over time. During the shake, my 7-year-old son told me he was felling like he was on a boat.
Links to people’s perceptions and reactions are presented below:
Ericson Encina Zuniga, PhD Student at University of Auckland, New Zealand.
