Magnitude-6.9 aftershock rocks Chile

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SANTIAGO, Chile — A series of strong aftershocks from last month’s devastating quake rocked Chile on Thursday as a new president was sworn into office and immediately urged coastal residents to move to higher ground in case of a tsunami.

The strongest aftershock, with a magnitude of 6.9, was nearly as strong as the quake that devastated Haiti’s capital, Port-au-Prince, on Jan. 12. There were no immediate reports of damages or injuries.

The Chilean Navy issued a tsunami warning while the U.S. Pacific Tsunami Warning Center said the aftershocks were too small to cause dangerous waves beyond Chile’s central coast.

President Sebastian Pinera was inaugurated at a congressional building in coastal Valparaiso before the building was evacuated as a precaution. The seven aftershocks strongly swayed buildings, shook windows and sent frightened Chileans streaming into the street.

The magnitude-6.9 aftershock was the strongest since the magnitude-8.8 quake on Feb. 27. It occurred along the same fault line, said geophysicist Don Blakeman at the U.S. Geological Survey in Golden, Colo. The USGS initially estimated the aftershock’s magnitude at 7.2.

“When we get quakes in the 8 range, we would expect to see maybe a couple of aftershocks in the 7 range,” he said.

Mr. Blakeman said Chile now can expect to feel “aftershocks of the aftershock.”

“It’s not a sign of anything different happening, but what does occur when you get these large aftershocks, typically we have a whole series of aftershocks again,” Mr. Blakeman said.

The government’s emergency office — much criticized for failing to issue a tsunami alert that might have saved hundreds of lives from the towering waves that followed the initial quake — urged Chileans to seek higher ground even though the epicenter of Thursday’s biggest shock was inland.

At the inauguration, Bolivian President Evo Morales seemed briefly disoriented, and Peruvian President Alan Garcia Perez joked that it gave them “a moment to dance.”

Outgoing President Michelle Bachelet said she’s leaving Chile in good shape in the wake of the February quake, handing off the government to the first right-wing president to be elected in 52 years.

Mr. Pinera said he would go right to work. The billionaire investor, Harvard-trained economist and airline executive with little patience for bureaucracy planned a working visit Thursday to the coastal city of Constitution, where the tsunami destroyed the scenic downtown, and a late-night Cabinet session.

On election night, he vowed to make Chile “the best country in the world,” spending billions to accelerate economic growth, create a million jobs in four years and combat crime, among other things.

Now, reconstruction is his top priority.

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