1877 Iquique Earthquake
- When
- 9 May 1877
- Where
- Iquique (occurrence locality); Antofagasta (damage locality)
The earthquake occurred on 9 May 1877, with magnitude estimates as high as 8.9 Mw and 9.0 Mt. It caused extensive damage in Antofagasta, and its rupture area is recognized as the Northern Chile Seismic Gap.
The 1877 Iquique earthquake occurred at 21:16 local time on 9 May (10 May UTC). Estimates of its magnitude have been as high as 8.9 Mw and 9.0 Mt, based on the size of the tsunami. The earthquake and tsunami caused extensive damage in Antofagasta, where authorities voted a nitrate export tax to fund reconstruction; Iquique itself is recorded among the earthquakes that devastated that city. The rupture area is recognized as the Northern Chile Seismic Gap. The legacy death toll of 2,541 is not supported by the supplied passages.
Sources
- 1877 Iquique earthquake Wikipedia, revision of 2026-08-12
- Iquique Wikipedia, revision of 2026-10-08
Machine-drafted from the cited Wikipedia passages and checked by a reviewing model, not by a human editor. Every passage cites the revision it was written from; dates and places follow those passages.