Interview: Seismologist praises quake-prone Chile's disaster readiness

Chile's location on an earthquake-prone part of the planet has made it better prepare for handling seismic disasters, a Chilean seismological expert has said.

The development of precautions against tremors has reduced casualties in dramatic and often tragic disasters, Sergio Barrientos, director of Chile's National Seismological Center, told Xinhua in an exclusive interview on Sunday.

"You don't have to look back too far in Chile's history to see the substantial damages caused by earthquakes. We've learned the hard way," Barrientos said.

In 1906, 20,000 people died after a quake hit the central coastal town of Valparaiso. Thirty-three years later, the 1939 earthquake, labelled as "the most lethal in Chile's history," claimed the lives of nearly 30,000 people.

"That one in 1939 in particular sparked a change that a strict building code began to take shape," said Barrientos. "Each quake has improved the building code application of how buildings being designed and constructed. And people are better educated" about the risks.

Since childhood, Chileans have known that they live in one of the planet's most quake-prone countries. Many people still remember the powerful 9.5-magnitude temblor on May 22, 1960, which devastated the town of Valdivia. It was the strongest earthquake ever recorded in the history of the planet.

In the past six years, three quakes measuring stronger than 8 magnitude have shaken different parts of Chile, whose Pacific coast lies along the ominous sounding volcanic Ring of Fire: 8.8 magnitude in Concepcion in 2010, 8.2 in Iquique in 2014 and 8.4 in Coquimbo in 2015.

Despite the powerful quakes, the death tolls have remained relatively low. "It's striking if compared with experiences in other parts of the world. The frequency of earthquakes has led us to confront them in a constructive way," Barrientos said.

Barrientos leads a team of about a dozen scientists at the Faculty of Engineering at the University of Chile.

"Today we have 100 monitoring stations throughout the country, and we are adding stations that can measure distortions in the geodetic system via satellite," said the expert.

Barrientos said the deadly 7.8-magnitude earthquake in Ecuador last month was caused by sliding tectonic plates along South America's Pacific coast. "We know the Ecuadorian quake was produced when the Nazca and South American plates meet."

"Every 100 years it moves seven meters, and seven meters corresponds to a magnitude 8 or higher quake at some point along where the two plates meet, as happened in Ecuador," he added.

While the regions most susceptible to earthquakes can be identified, scientists can't yet predict when they will occur, Barrientos said.

Until now, earthquake proofing measures are the best solution, he said.

"If you examine Chile's history since the arrival of the Europeans, you can more or less see that frequent strong quakes have generated a certain degree of seismic awareness and resilience," said the scientist. Endi