Mondo Knows Facts

The strongest earthquake ever recorded struck Chile in 1960

The Valdivia earthquake measured magnitude 9.5

On 22 May 1960 the ground shook for around ten minutes along a rupture of about 1,000 kilometres. The resulting tsunami crossed the Pacific and killed people in Hawaii and Japan as well as in Chile. The quake released energy thousands of times greater than the bomb dropped on Hiroshima.

Where this comes from

USGS

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Tags: earthquake, chile, tsunami

The strongest earthquake ever recorded struck Chile in 1960: the short answers

Where does this come from, and can I check it?
The Valdivia earthquake measured magnitude 9.5. The figure is taken from USGS, which is linked in full on this page. Every fact on Mondo Knows names its source rather than repeating an unsourced claim.
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Yes. It sits on the Records & Extremes shelf, one of 1,090 sourced facts grouped into space, animals, the human body, history, science and more. Category pages collect every fact in the same field.
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