The 1730 Great Metropolitan Chile Earthquake and Tsunami Commemoration: Joint Efforts to Increase the Country’s Awareness

Natalia Zamora,Matías Carvajal,Alejandro Urrutia,Marco Cisternas,Sebastián Pereira,Cristóbal Karich,Patricio Catalán,Patricio Winckler,Rodrigo Cienfuegos,Víctor Orellana,Stefan Vogel,Alejandra Gubler,Celeste Bertin,José Galaz,Jorge León

doi:10.3390/geosciences10060246

Abstract

On 8 July 1730, a great earthquake struck metropolitan Chile, causing extensive damage 1000 km along the country and focused in Valparaíso. Due to the date of occurrence of this event, large uncertainties about the earthquake’s magnitude have been discussed among the scientific community, and the earthquake and tsunami have remained unknown for most of the population. The purpose of this paper is to describe joint efforts undertaken by organizations, academia, and authorities to rescue the forgotten memory of an event that occurred almost three centuries ago and that may be repeated in the near future. In line with the Sendai Framework, we focus on one of the four priorities for action, which is to understand disaster risk, with the premise that the memory activation and raising awareness can save lives in the future. We designed outreach strategies to communicate this knowledge to the community in a participatory way. The latter involves scientific talks, earthquake simulators, tsunami projection mapping on relief scaled models (mock-up), and a public debate including the participation of academia, politicians, authorities, and the local community. The emulation of such activities and the constant work of regional and national authorities, academia, and non-governmental organizations dealing with risk mitigation encourage involving the community to build safer cities against the tsunami hazard.

Highlights

The metropolitan area of Chile, including the main harbor city of Valparaíso, have historically suffered several large earthquakes (Figure 1)
ONEMI was in charge of the earthquake simulator and disseminated information for a community drill issued for 30 September 2019, where at least 110,000 people participated in Valparaíso and Viña del Mar
Based on numerical simulation of an expected worst case scenario, we showed the potential threat of an earthquake similar to the one of 1730 [1], with maximum flow depths of 12 m and 18 m on the lower elevations of Valparaíso and Viña del Mar, respectively (Figure 5)

Summary

Introduction

The metropolitan area of Chile, including the main harbor city of Valparaíso, have historically suffered several large earthquakes (Figure 1). Since the 18th Century, at least four interplate earthquakes greater than Mw 8.0 (1730, 1822, 1906, and 1985 events) have been generated in this area [1]. The accumulated death toll, caused by the earthquakes and secondary effects (e.g., tsunami), for these four events was 4830 casualties [2]. Two large earthquakes in the immediate neighborhood affected Valparaíso, in the south in 2010 (Mw 8.8) and in the north in 2015 (Mw 8.3). Tsunami Inundation Chart for Valparaíso and Viña del Mar [3]. Yellow triangles show the data of the tsunami inundation extent based on historical records along Valparaíso.

Objectives

Methods

Results