(heraldsun) Saturday's 8.8-magnitude quake, the seventh most powerful on record, struck central Chile some 325km south of the capital Santiago and 115km north-northeast of the second largest city of Concepcion. So far the death toll is over 700 and rising, although President Michelle Bachelet, in announcing the newest figures, warned the toll would climb with hundreds of people still missing. Haiti, the poorest country in the Americas, was struck January 12 with a 7.0-magnitude quake - hundreds of times weaker than the one in Chile - but the epicentre was just 24km from the overflowing capital Port-au-Prince. The most recent estimates put the toll there at over 220,000 dead, with President Rene Preval warning the final figure could reach 300,000, making it the worst natural disaster in modern history. Seismically speaking, comparisons between the tremors are irrelevant because the situations at their fault lines were so different, experts said. But put in geographic context, the two earthquakes show how events of different strengths at varying distances from densely urban areas can have vastly different outcomes.

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