Valparaiso earthquake

August 16, 1906

A magnitude 8.2 earthquake struck Chile's main port city, killing roughly three thousand and destroying much of the city in a few terrifying minutes. Tsunami waves crossed the Pacific to Hawaii and Japan. Chile's seismic vulnerabilities came into sharp relief, and Valparaiso, once South America's busiest Pacific port and a cosmopolitan jewel of the southern hemisphere, began a long decline it would never fully reverse.