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1 Executive Summary
A major earthquake of magnitude 8.3 Mw at a
depth of 25 km occurred on the 16th of
September at 22.54 UTC in the Pacific Ocean, in
the sea area west of central Chile, very close to
the coast. The epicentre was located
approximately midway between the port cities of
Valparaiso and Coquimbo, ca. 250 km NW of
Santiago. USGS-PAGER estimates 42 000 people
exposed to Severe and more than 800 000 to
Very Strong shaking. The earthquake triggered
a significant tsunami that reached a measured
max. height of around 4.8m at the Chilean coast
near Coquimbo. The whole of the coast of Chile
was put on Red Alert by the local authorities
following the event, and a Tsunami Threat
Message was issued by the Pacific Tsunami
Warning Centre for a large part of the whole
Pacific coasts. Coastal evacuations were promptly
ordered by the Chilean Authorities and around 1
million people have been evacuated according to
media reports. Aftershocks as strong as 7 Mw Figure 1- Map of the earthquake's area
followed the main event.
As of early on 17 September, Chilean authorities and media report five people killed by the direct effects of
the earthquake (falling debris). Worst affected by building damage and landslides are the communities of
Illapel, Canela and Salamanca; Choapa province was declared a disaster zone. Media reports also show
coastal flooding by tsunami; the extent of tsunami damage was not ascertained yet, as of 10:00 UTC on
September 17. JRC calculations estimate a maximum tsunami height of 7.5 m occurring in the location Los
Vilos.
The JRC is following the event closely. GDACS issued a first Orange Alert approx 6 min after the event,
followed by a Red Alert 20 min after the event, when the conditions were revised by seismological
organizations. A brief report on the event was issued by the JRC-centred GTIMS2 partner network of
seismological centres 1 hour after the event, followed by a more extensive report within 3h from the event.
Copernicus Emergency Mapping Service was also activated by the Emergency Response and Coordination
Centre on Sep. 17.
Alerts: The whole of the coast of Chile was put on Red Alert by the National Authorities and a Tsunami
Threat Message was issued by the Pacific Tsunami Warning Centre for a large of the whole western
American coast. For the alerts issued by GDACS and the Joint Research Centre, see Section 3 of this report.
Seismic Hazard: The undersea earthquake was close enough to the shore to cause significant damage by
shaking; however, no major populated places were very near the epicentre. USGS reports Severe shaking
(VIII in the Modified Mercalli scale) for 42 000 people; this intensity can cause moderate to heavy damage,
particularly in weak structures. Another 800 000 people were subjected to Very Strong shaking (MMI VII),
including the cities of Illapel (23 000 people, closest city to the epicentre), Coquimbo (160 000 people) and
La Serena (155 000 people).
Tsunami Hazard: Earthquakes of this magnitude can produce very dangerous tsunamis, and close to 1
million people were ordered to evacuate coastal areas
Figure 2: Damage by tsunami in Chile (Photos by "El Mostrador" and "La Segunda")
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1. the operation of GDACS, www.gdacs.org that plays a major role in alerting the international
community to humanitarian emergencies during natural disasters.
2. The coordination of the GTIMS2 Tsunami Alert network of seismological centres (Global Informal
Monitoring System)
3. The management of the Copernicus Emergency Mapping Service, that is triggered to provide
satellite data on very short time scales in case of major incidents
Although GDACS is an automatic system and all the estimations are based on event detection and launch of
dedicated calculations, the last value of the impact estimation has been obtained by perfoming a manual
calculation few hours after the event, when more precise information on the fault mechanism were
available from USGS. This is the reference calculation desscribed here: in the next days the reference
calculation could change if more detailed information become available.
The conditions above have been obtained by USGS (solution 1)1 . The following table reports the lis of the
first 20 locations reached by the Tsunami wave. The full list of location is present in the GDACS web site
(see references). The calculation was performed with the following conditions:
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http://earthquake.usgs.gov/earthquakes/eventpage/us20003k7a#scientific_tensor:us_us_20003k7a_mww
Fault Geometry
Displacement: 6 (m)
Width: 62 (km)
Lenght: 223 (km)
Strike: 353 (deg - North=0)
Dip: 19 (deg)
Rake 83 (deg)
The estimated maximum height was 7.5 m, in Los Vilos (31.92 S, 71.51 W) but many other locations are
estimated to have been severely impacted by the Tsunami wave. These evaluations have also been used in
order to identify the areas mostly affected for which the Copernicus Service was requested (see later).
The comparison between measured and calculated sea level allows selecting the right scenario and the
quality of the calculation.
A more extended calculation has also been performed in order to understand the wave propagation in the
Pacific Ocean. This calculation was performed with a rougher nodalization, as the cell size was 5 instead of
1 minute, as for the short range forecast.
The results indicate, see next figure, that most of the damage occurred in Chile; from the simulation the
maximum wave height in various Pacific highlands does not exceed 1 m.
At the time of the report issuing the wave is still propagating in the Pacific Ocean and is expected to reach
Japan tonight, at about 20:49 after several hours of travel time. The expected maximum height in Japan is
about 0.2-0.3 m.
Figure 8 Sea level in Kawaihae, Hawaii. The arrival time is at 13:30 of 17 Sep
A dedicated application allows ERCC to follow the evolution of the event and eventually pose questions to
the teams involved in the analysis. This is a first form of Scientific Partnership within the European Union
that will be further developed in other initiatives of JRC together with other General Directions.
Their alerts had the following time sequence as depicted in their web site.
The initial countrywide tsunami alert was issued at 16-09-2015 20:02 (local time) referring to a Mw 7.9
Richter scale event occurring at 19:54 (local time), thus 8 minutes after the event. The second warning, 10
minutes later added arrival times while the 3rd (20:32 local time) updated the information with a new
magnitude assessment of Mw 8.3 Richter and a measurement of 1.4 m at PICHIDANGUI. Further updates
added additional measurements up to 21:50 (local time) when the reference magnitude was increased to
Mw 8.4 Richter and several measuring stations reporting tsunami amplitudes up to 4.5 m.
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GFS: http://www.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov/products/african_desk/cpc_intl/samerica
For the latest news on damage, impact etc the following web sites were used:
BBC: http://www.bbc.com/news/world-latin-america-34275783
La Nacion: http://www.lanacion.cl/
La Segunda: http://www.lasegunda.com/
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