Chile puts tsunami preparedness into practice as 328,000+ join a region-wide evacuation drill

Country: Chile Source: UN Office for Disaster Risk Reduction Chile’s central coast can receive tsunami waves a short time after a large earthquake offshore, so schools and communities need to know in advance how to reach safe ground. The Peru–Chile Trench lies about 160 kilometres off Chile’s coast. Along it, the Nazca Plate moves beneath the South American Plate at about 6 centimetres a year. This subduction zone has produced many great earthquakes, including a magnitude 8.0 earthquake near Valparaíso in 1985. This means Valparaíso is also exposed to large tsunamis . In 1730, an earthquake es