Word: chiles
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Measured on the Richter scale, which counts any jolt over 7 as "major,"* the five biggest of Chile's shudders ranged between 7.25 and 8.5, striking along a fault line (see chart) that cuts through Chile's southern wheat-growing breadbasket and close to coal-mining, fishing and light-industrial towns...
Drowned Coastlines. Then, on seismic waves of deceptively quiet water, Chile's tragedy spread across the Pacific. Traveling as fast as 520 m.p.h. but separated as much as 100 miles from crest to crest, the waves met incoming ships so gently that they merely slowed them down. But when the waves hit land, they caused an unruly violence that varied according to the slope of a shore, the shelter of a peninsula or the degree of warning...
Some 28 hours after it left Chile, one wave formed a giant whirlpool off the Philippine island of Canarimes and swallowed nine fishermen along with their boat. An hour later the long east coast of Japan, 10,000 miles from Chile, went under. Warned by a sudden onrush of the sea, the fishermen of the coastal town of Kiritappu raced for high ground, then turned to watch the waves fling their boats into the streets behind them. The waterfront of Hilo, Hawaii was erased by 35 ft. waves...
Fight for Bread. Across the Pacific, heavy losses piled up: in the Philippines 20 dead and $150,000 damage;*in Hawaii 56 dead, 8 missing, $50 million damage; in Japan 107 dead, 86 missing. $50 million damage. And in Chile, where at week's end the earth still trembled, the death count climbed toward 5,000 and the damage toward $400 million...
Planes and ships from across the world headed for Chile filled with serums, water purifiers, blankets, clothes, food. Fifty-four U.S. Air Force transport planes airlifted two 400-bed Army field hospitals, lugged relief supplies to shattered towns and cities inside the earthquake region. The first shipments of help only scratched the surface of the need. When a trainload of refugees pulled out of half-destroyed Valdivia, those left behind called after it: "We are hungry! Please send us bread and milk!" At week's end, as hunger grew deeper, desperate men fought with knives for chunks of bread...