Earthquake, Storms Batter Chile

Press, Issue 29236, 21 June 1960, Page 15

Earthquake, Storms Batter Chile

SANTIAGO, June 20. A fairly strong earthquake jolted an extensive area of devastated central and southern Chile last night.

Authorities said the shock was felt from Santiago to Puerto Montt. They said there were no initial reports of damages or casualties.

Earlier, it was announced that 18 persons were killed in a landslide in the vicinity of Panguipulli Lake, near Valdivia, which was one of the hardest-hit cities in the recent earthquakes. Reports said the landslide was set off by heavy rains. In Berkeley, California, last night the University of California recorded a strong earthquake 6000 miles south-east of Berkeley, and said it probably took place in southern Chile.

Mr Don Tocher, seismologist at the university laboratory, said instruments recorded the earthquake for almost an hour. Its magnitude was 7.25 on the Richter scale.

Police in Santiago said last night's tremor was one cf the most violent since the catastrophic earthquakes of May 21 and

22. Reports from the scene of the landslide, in the mountains 60odd miles east of Valdivia, said

it had carried a house into the lake and killed all of its occupants. according to United Press International. The storm that lashed the Con-cepcion-Valdivia area yesterday was so violent that in some places it blew down walls left standing by the continual earth tremors of the last month. Telephone communication between Valdivia and the north was interrupted for some time.

Wind-driven tides flooded lowlying areas of Valdivia, driving about 200 persons from homes in the partially-abandoned city. A United States Army field hospital set up to aid earthquake victims provided temporary housing for the flood refugees. Torrential rains halted work on the natural dam blocking the San Pedro River, where engineers are toiling to open spillways which will lessen or eliminate the threat of disastrous floods. The head of water building up in the landslide-blocked river is expected to sp’ll out later this week, perhaps sending a devastating wall of water surging down the San Pedro through Valdivia to the sea.