The Great Chilean Earthquake of May 22, 1960 (magnitude 9.5), with severe fore- and aftershocks, was the largest earthquake measured during the 20th century. Callous as it is to say, this quake caused relatively few deaths – probably fewer than 3,000, including those killed during the quake itself, during the mudslides and volcanic eruptions which followed in Chile, and as a result of the tsunami that claimed victims from northern California to Hawaii to the Philippines to Japan. Still, it is remembered as one of the century’s great disasters, in part because new technology allowed the temblor to be recorded and measured precisely, because television carried almost-live images to the rest of the world, and because jet aircraft allowed the world to respond immediately.

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