Chili's Earthquake

The massive 8.8 earthquake that struck Chile may have changed the entire Earth's rotation and shortened the length of days on our planet, a NASA scientist said Monday.

The quake, the seventh strongest earthquake in recorded history, hit Chile Saturday and should have shortened the length of an Earth day by 1.26 milliseconds, according to research scientist Richard Gross at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif.

"Perhaps more impressive is how much the quake shifted Earth's axis," NASA officials said in a Monday update.

The computer model used by Gross and his colleagues to determine the effects of the Chile earthquake effect also found that it should have moved Earth's figure axis by about 3 inches (8 cm or 27 milliarcseconds).

The Earth's figure axis is not the same as its north-south axis, which it spins around once every day at a speed of about 1,000 mph (1,604 kph).

The figure axis is the axis around which the Earth's mass is balanced. It is offset from the Earth's north-south axis by about 33 feet (10 meters).

Strong earthquakes have altered Earth's days and its axis in the past. The 9.1 Sumatran earthquake in 2004, which set off a deadly tsunami, should have shortened Earth's days by 6.8 microseconds and shifted its axis by about 2.76 inches (7 cm, or 2.32 milliarcseconds).

One Earth day is about 24 hours long. Over the course of a year, the length of a day normally changes gradually by one millisecond. It increases in the winter, when the Earth rotates more slowly, and decreases in the summer, Gross has said in the past.

The Chile earthquake was much smaller than the Sumatran temblor, but its effects on the Earth are larger because of its location. Its epicenter was located in the Earth's mid-latitudes rather than near the equator like the Sumatran event.

The fault responsible for the 2010 Chile quake also slices through Earth at a steeper angle than the Sumatran quake's fault, NASA scientists said.

"This makes the Chile fault more effective in moving Earth's mass vertically and hence more effective in shifting Earth's figure axis," NASA officials said.

Gross said his findings are based on early data available on the Chile earthquake. As more information about its characteristics are revealed, his prediction of its effects will likely change.

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27/02/2010 - A massive earthquake with a magnitude of 8.8 has struck central Chile, triggering a tsunami. Four SOS Children's Villages in the greater area of Concepcion are ready to immediately provide temporary shelter for unaccompanied children and to support reunification with families.

Please help those victims of the quake in Chile now!

The tremor shook the capital, Santiago, for a minute and a half early this morning, bringing down telephone and power lines.

The quake centred 200 miles south-west of Santiago at a depth of 22 miles, according to the US Geological Survey. The epicentre was 70 miles from Concepcion, Chile's second largest city, with a population of around 670,000.

The largest earthquake ever recorded struck the same area of Chile on 22 May 1960. The magnitude-9.5 quake killed 1,655 people and left 2 million homeless.

SOS Children’s Villages has a long experience of work in Chile. The organisation started to operate in Concepción in 1965, when the first village was established . Inadequate infrastructures in the immediate vicinity led to the creation of a number of additional facilities in the following years, such as SOS Kindergartens, SOS Youth Facilities, SOS Technical Schools, and various SOS Social Centers. In the following years the number of villages continued to grow in other areas of Chile, especially in the central region. At present there are thirteen active SOS Children's Villages, eleven SOS Youth Facilities, four SOS Kindergartens, two SOS Vocational Training Centers and ten SOS Social Centers.

dikutip dari : http://www.sos-childrensvillages.org/