Lessons In Chile's Strength

San Franciscans also live in a zone where they are reminded frequently by perceptible shaking. That is not the case in the Pacific Northwest, where seismic activity is seldom perceptible and usually associated with volcanic eruptions rather than earthquakes per se. The Chile quake should be a wake-up call to the U.S. Northwest.

It's not surprising that a a major earthquake in Haiti would be a greater human tragedy than a similar event in Chile. Haiti is the most impoverished country in the hemisphere and Chile is among the more prosperous. However, when one considers that the Chile quake registered at 8.8 magnitude, compared to the Haiti quake's 5.9, and that the former released 500 times the energy as the Haiti quake, it is stunning to consider the differences in loss of life. Even if the so far reported Chilean death toll of 700 were to increase by several orders of magnitude, it still will be dwarfed by the approximately 200,000 deaths suffered in the Caribbean nation.The instability of soil beneath buildings may have been one factor in Haiti, but by far the major cause was flimsy construction. Chilean construction, by contrast, is not merely comparable to standards in developed countries but generally superior. The reason for such high standards is that Chileans are accustomed to almost constant seismic activity, and have experienced devastating quakes in recent memory. In fact, the most powerful earthquake ever recorded struck Chile in 1960. Smaller events strike locations in Chile and nearby Argentina with great frequency. An RMS (Newark, Calif.) news release comments on the impact of this experience on construction standards:

"One positive outcome of Chile's history of powerful earthquakes is that building standards are some of the most stringent globally and are generally much higher than in the rest of South America." She said: "Close to half of all the properties in Chile have been built in the past 40 years when building codes have been in force. Most residential buildings are made of reinforced concrete, which acts as a buffer against ground shaking, which is in sharp contrast to the shanty housing that was destroyed by the Haiti earthquake."

I experienced the frequency of seismic activity in the region first-hand during the year I spent as an exchange student in San Juan, Argentina, 180 miles northeast of Santiago. A few days after my arrival I awoke thinking that someone was shaking my bed. It was the first of countless temblors I experienced while there, the worst causing me and others to run out of a building, after which we nervously watched cars dancing on the tarmac until the event ended.

It was in San Juan that I learned about anti-seismic construction, which in that city includes the rule that no structure will be over seven stories tall. San Juan learned its coding lessons the hard way: in 1944, the city was largely destroyed by an earthquake that killed about 10,000 people - making it the worst natural catastrophe in Argentine history. To relate an interesting bit of historical trivia, during the national relief effort orchestrated from San Juan, an up-and-coming military officer named Juan PerÓn met an attractive young radio personality named Eva "Evita" Duarte.

Other major quakes struck San Juan in 1952, 1984, 1977, and large seismic events have hit other cities on the Argentine side of the Andes near Santiago.

To return to the quake that struck Chile this weekend, the country's relative prosperity makes anti-seismic construction possible, but it also made the quake a more significant insurance loss event than that Haiti quake - very few Haitian properties were insured, by comparison. This morning AIR (Boston) estimated that total losses from the Chilean earthquake will likely exceed more than $2 billion, according to an AIR news release:

"The total economic loss will likely be severe from damage not only to buildings, but from the widespread impact on infrastructure, including roads, bridges, airports, and utilities and telecommunications networks," said Dr. Jayanta Guin, senior vice president of research and modeling at AIR Worldwide.

Economic and insurance losses could be much higher in prosperous San Francisco, California, in the event of quake on the stronger side of what's possible, given the city's geologic environment.

However, San Franciscans also live in a zone where they are reminded frequently by perceptible shaking. That is not the case in the Pacific Northwest, where seismic activity is seldom perceptible and usually associated with volcanic eruptions rather than earthquakes per se. The Chile quake should be a wake-up call to the U.S. Northwest and Oregon in particular, according to Andrew C. Revkin writing in the New York Times. Revkin quotes a warning from Patrick Corcoran of Oregon State University:

"The release of pressure between two overlapping tectonic plates along the subduction zone regularly generates massive 9.0 magnitude earthquakes -- including five over the last 1,400 years. The last 'Big One' was 309 years ago. We are in a geologic time when we can expect another 'Big One,' either in our lives or those of our children. Prudence dictates that we overcome our human tendencies to ignore this inevitability."

Anthony O'Donnell has covered technology in the insurance industry since 2000, when he joined the editorial staff of Insurance & Technology. As an editor and reporter for I&T and the InformationWeek Financial Services of TechWeb he has written on all areas of information ... View Full Bio