Major Magnitude 6.8 Earthquake Hits Northern Chile; Causing Power Outages

Major Magnitude 6.8 Earthquake Hits Northern Chile; Causing Power Outages
An earthquake struck northern Chile on the morning of June 3, 2020 (USGS)

A powerful earthquake hit northern Chile early on Wednesday, according to the GFZ German Research Center for Geosciences (GFZ).

Two towns close to the epicenter lost power and an industrial mining plant caught fire when the powerful quake with a preliminary magnitude of 6.8 hit the region of Antofagasta around 3:40 a.m.

The quake struck at a depth of 145 km (90 miles), GFZ added. The U.S. Geological Survey placed the quake’s epicenter about 62 km (38 miles) southwest of San Pedro de Atacama.

There were no immediate reports of casualties and no major damage was reported.

The town of Toconao and the Ayllu de Solor neighborhood in San Pedro de Atacama was briefly without power, The Daily Mail reported. The Antofagasta regional government restored electricity for residents in the area about half an hour later.

A video shared on Twitter shows a copper and concrete smelting plant near the city of Antofagasta, which appeared to have caught fire following the quake.

“Collapse of mining furnace due to a strong 6.8 #earthquake,” the caption of the post read, showing huge flames at the industry.

In early 2019, a 6.7 magnitude quake struck the coast of northern Chile, and witnesses said it rattled buildings farther south in the capital city of Santiago but left only minor damage in its wake.  “It felt very strong…the tourists were very nervous, but nothing serious happened,” Camila Castillo, a receptionist at a hotel in La Serena, told Reuters.

Chile is prone to strong earthquakes because it sits on the Pacific Ring of Fire—a chain of very active seismological zones that circles the Pacific Ocean.

Ring of Fire

The “Ring of Fire” stretches from New Zealand to Indonesia before going to Taiwan, the Philippines, and Japan. Then, it stretches up to Russia and crosses over to North America through the Bering Sea. The west coasts of North America and South America are part of this seismically active region.

NTD Photo
The Pacific “Ring of Fire.” (Public Domain)

“The Ring of Fire isn’t quite a circular ring. It is shaped more like a 25,000-mile horseshoe. A string of 452 volcanoes stretches from the southern tip of South America, up along the coast of North America, across the Bering Strait, down through Japan, and into New Zealand. Several active and dormant volcanoes in Antarctica, however, ‘close’ the ring,” according to National Geographic.

Epoch Times reporter Jack Phillips and Reuters contributed to this report.

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