Qualla: 1965 La Ligua earthquake https://qualla.com/1965-la-ligua-earthquake en-us © 2026 Bendyline Wed, 08 Jul 2026 02:39:57 GMT Qualla serial false Qualla support@bendyline.com yes https://qualla.com/_m/6/6/j/r/1965-la-ligua-earthquake-wp/hero-small.webp Qualla: 1965 La Ligua earthquake https://qualla.com/1965-la-ligua-earthquake 1965 La Ligua earthquake: Introduction https://qualla.com/1965-la-ligua-earthquake/ Photo credit Mikenorton, CC BY-SA 3.0. It was Sunday lunchtime in El Cobre, a small copper-mining settlement in the hills north of Santiago. Families had come back from church. Pots were on the stove. Then, at 12:33 on March 28, 1965, the ground convulsed - and high above the town, two earthen dams holding back years of mining waste gave way at once. What poured down the valley was not water but a wall of liquefied tailings, gray and heavy, moving fast. It traveled twelve kilometers and swallowed the town whole, burying homes, families, and miners under several feet of muck before most people understood what was happening.

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Image: Mikenorton | CC BY-SA 3.0

]]> Sun, 21 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/6/6/j/r/1965-la-ligua-earthquake-wp/66jr-1965-la-ligua-earthquake-intro.mp3 0:06 1 full 1965 La Ligua earthquake: A Country Built on a Fault https://qualla.com/1965-la-ligua-earthquake/ Photo credit Mikenorton, CC BY-SA 3.0. Chile lives on the edge of the Ring of Fire, where the Nazca plate grinds beneath the South American plate along one of the planet's great collision zones. The country knows earthquakes the way other places know weather. Just five years earlier, the 1960 Valdivia earthquake - mag...

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Image: Mikenorton | CC BY-SA 3.0

]]> Sun, 21 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/6/6/j/r/1965-la-ligua-earthquake-wp/66jr-1965-la-ligua-earthquake-a-country-built-on-a-fault.mp3 0:06 2 full 1965 La Ligua earthquake: The Town That Vanished https://qualla.com/1965-la-ligua-earthquake/ Photo credit Mikenorton, CC BY-SA 3.0. The dams that failed sat above El Cobre, holding the sandy residue left after copper was stripped from ore. When the shaking liquefied them, they released an estimated two million cubic meters of debris in two surges. Sixty to seventy farmhouses and cottages disappeared beneath t...

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Image: Mikenorton | CC BY-SA 3.0

]]> Sun, 21 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/6/6/j/r/1965-la-ligua-earthquake-wp/66jr-1965-la-ligua-earthquake-the-town-that-vanished.mp3 0:06 3 full 1965 La Ligua earthquake: Across the Whole Country https://qualla.com/1965-la-ligua-earthquake/ Photo credit Mikenorton, CC BY-SA 3.0. Beyond El Cobre, the quake left a wide trail of ruin. In Salamanca and Illapel, more than 100,000 people lost their homes; officials reported that over 90 percent of houses in the Illapel district were damaged, with one hospital destroyed entirely and, as one account put it, "onl...

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]]> Sun, 21 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/6/6/j/r/1965-la-ligua-earthquake-wp/66jr-1965-la-ligua-earthquake-across-the-whole-country.mp3 0:06 4 full 1965 La Ligua earthquake: What the Dead Changed https://qualla.com/1965-la-ligua-earthquake/ Photo credit Mikenorton, CC BY-SA 3.0. Before 1965, Chile had no national body to coordinate rescue and relief. People had simply endured their frequent earthquakes, leaning on neighbors and local officials. The horror of El Cobre, coming so soon after the 1960 disasters, made that absence impossible to ignore. The tr...

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]]> Sun, 21 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/6/6/j/r/1965-la-ligua-earthquake-wp/66jr-1965-la-ligua-earthquake-what-the-dead-changed.mp3 0:06 5 full