CHILE: The 10,000-Mile Disaster

As Chile cracked and heaved last week under the force of its fifth major earthquake in two days, a six-year-old boy in Puerto Montt snatched up his baby brothers, tucked one under each arm and tried to run. Walls twisted and split above him. The earth beneath rocked so crazily that he could not move his feet. Then an avalanche of crumbled masonry buried him to the neck. When he was dug out, his brothers were dead—and in the shock and fright of his own eyes was the measure of Chile's disaster.

Fragile Crust. Geologically, Chile is in a mountain-building...