Photos Chile earthquake

-------------------------------

Talca, Chile (AP) One of the strongest earth- quakes ever recorded tore apart houses, bridges and highways in central Chile on Saturday, February 27, 2010 and sent a tsunami racing halfway around the world, raising tensions in Hawaii and around the Pacific Rim. Chileans near the epicenter were tossed about as if shaken by a giant, and the head of the emergency agency said authorities believed at least 300 people were dead.

The magnitude-8.8 quake — matching the seventh-strongest on record — was felt as far away as São Paulo in Brazil, 1,800 miles to the east. The full extent of the damage remained unclear as dozens of aftershocks, one nearly as powerful as Haiti’s devastating Jan. 12 earthquake, shuddered across the disaster-prone Andean nation.

-------------------------------------------------------