EARTHQUAKES IN CHILE

Otago Daily Times, Issue 23828, 7 June 1939, Page 20

EARTHQUAKES IN CHILE

MORE THAN .12,000 IN LAST SEVENTEEN YEARS Earthquakes have caused so many panics in Chile that now a mere rumour of an earthquake can. start a Danic. Recovering from a quake that in February devastated six provinces, this shivering South American country is now fighting earthquake rumours—with the lash. It has been decreed that whoever is found guilty of spreading rumours about the dread tremors will be punished by public lashing to the beat of drums. "At any whisper of an earthquake Chileans fear the worst, because their country is called the shakiest region in the world," says the National Geographical Society. " Scientists who keep tab on the earth's seismic disturbances have found that Chile quakes about 1000 times to Japan's 400. These two countries lie at opposite sides of the world's most active earthquake zone, which almost encircles . the Pacific Ocean. Two out of every three major quake disasters in the world occur in this circum-Pacific zone. "A study of Chile's earthquakes, both large and small, for a period of 17 years revealed more than 12,000. "Few of them, however, have been as devastating or as widespread as the recent one. If this earthquake had occurred on the Pacific Coast of the United States it would have been felt from Canada, into Mexico. If on the Atlantic side I it would have extended along the j entire east coast." . ,