Qualla: 1942 Ecuador earthquake https://qualla.com/1942-ecuador-earthquake en-us © 2026 Bendyline Mon, 20 Jul 2026 10:21:12 GMT Qualla serial false Qualla support@bendyline.com yes https://qualla.com/_m/d/0/p/0/1942-ecuador-earthquake-wp/hero-small.webp Qualla: 1942 Ecuador earthquake https://qualla.com/1942-ecuador-earthquake 1942 Ecuador earthquake: Introduction https://qualla.com/1942-ecuador-earthquake/ Photo credit Mikenorton, CC BY-SA 3.0. Ecuador's largest city in 1942 was Guayaquil: a port on the Pacific estuary, built mostly on soft alluvial soil, growing fast, proud of a skyline of new reinforced-concrete buildings that the previous generation had never imagined possible. On the night of May 13, at 21:13 local time, a magnitude 7.8 earthquake ruptured the Nazca-South American plate boundary off Manabí Province, about 200 kilometres away. In Guayaquil, the soft soil did what soft soil does during strong shaking. It amplified. Buildings that the city had just learned to trust began to fall.

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]]> Sat, 18 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/d/0/p/0/1942-ecuador-earthquake-wp/d0p0-1942-ecuador-earthquake-intro.mp3 0:06 1 full 1942 Ecuador earthquake: A Partial Return of 1906 https://qualla.com/1942-ecuador-earthquake/ Photo credit Mikenorton, CC BY-SA 3.0. Seismologists looking at 1942 in retrospect recognized something striking: the 1942 rupture was on almost exactly the same patch of plate boundary that had moved in the much larger 1906 earthquake. Where 1906 had broken 500 to 600 kilometres of fault in one enormous slip, 1942 br...

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]]> Sat, 18 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/d/0/p/0/1942-ecuador-earthquake-wp/d0p0-1942-ecuador-earthquake-a-partial-return-of-1906.mp3 0:06 2 full 1942 Ecuador earthquake: What Loose Soil Does https://qualla.com/1942-ecuador-earthquake/ Photo credit Mikenorton, CC BY-SA 3.0. The epicenter was off Pedernales in Manabí Province. The shaking near the coast was severe but the population thin. It was the soft sediments under Guayaquil - far inland from the epicenter - that produced the most dramatic damage. Most of the city experienced intensity VI to VII...

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]]> Sat, 18 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/d/0/p/0/1942-ecuador-earthquake-wp/d0p0-1942-ecuador-earthquake-what-loose-soil-does.mp3 0:06 3 full 1942 Ecuador earthquake: A Clinic at Pichincha and Colón https://qualla.com/1942-ecuador-earthquake/ Photo credit Mikenorton, CC BY-SA 3.0. The single worst loss of life in Guayaquil occurred on the corner of Pichincha and Colón streets, where a five-story clinic collapsed. Forty people - patients, visitors, staff - were killed in that one building. In total, more than 100 of the city's fatalities were attributed to ...

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]]> Sat, 18 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/d/0/p/0/1942-ecuador-earthquake-wp/d0p0-1942-ecuador-earthquake-a-clinic-at-pichincha-and-col-n.mp3 0:06 4 full 1942 Ecuador earthquake: The Days After https://qualla.com/1942-ecuador-earthquake/ Photo credit Mikenorton, CC BY-SA 3.0. Within a week, most of the city's water pipes were repaired. Electrical and telephone service returned in stages. The clinic at Pichincha and Colón became a site of mourning, and the collapsed buildings in the center became, quietly, case studies. Guayaquil's civil engineering co...

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]]> Sat, 18 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/d/0/p/0/1942-ecuador-earthquake-wp/d0p0-1942-ecuador-earthquake-the-days-after.mp3 0:06 5 full 1942 Ecuador earthquake: A 74-Year Clock https://qualla.com/1942-ecuador-earthquake/ Photo credit Mikenorton, CC BY-SA 3.0. Modern analysis has found something remarkable about the 1942 rupture. When the plate boundary broke again in April 2016 near Pedernales, the epicenter was only 42 kilometres from the 1942 one, and the magnitude was essentially identical: 7.8. The two quakes ruptured very nearly ...

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]]> Sat, 18 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/d/0/p/0/1942-ecuador-earthquake-wp/d0p0-1942-ecuador-earthquake-a-74-year-clock.mp3 0:06 6 full