Map

Where it struck, with the other significant earthquakes within 200 km. Circles are sized and colored by magnitude; select one for its page.

The earthquake

Date: March 25, 2012
Time: 22:37:06 UTC
Place: Parral, Santiago, Chile
Magnitude: 7.2 (Mw)
Magnitude scales: Mw 7.2 · Ms 7 · mb 6.5
Focal depth: 41 km (25 mi)
Tsunami: None recorded
Epicenter: 35.200° S, 72.217° W
Country: Chile
Region: South America
USGS record: The USGS’s page for this earthquake

Mw: moment magnitude, based on the slip on the fault and the area that slipped. Ms: surface-wave magnitude. mb: body-wave (P-wave) magnitude. NCEI’s headline magnitude is the best of these for the earthquake.

The toll

Deaths: 1
Injuries: 14
Damage: $100 million
Houses damaged: Some (about 51 to 100)

Where the literature gives no number, NCEI records a description on a scale of 1 to 4, printed here in its words. Damage is in millions of US dollars of the year of the event, not adjusted for inflation.

From Wikipedia

The 2012 Constitución earthquake was recorded on March 25, 2012, at 7:37 pm local time. It had a moment magnitude of 7.1 and its epicenter was located 23 km (14 mi) northeast of the city of Constitución, in the Maule Region, Chile. According to experts, it was a strong and late aftershock of the Great Chile earthquake of February 27, 2010.

The earthquake was felt from Coquimbo to the Los Lagos Region, with the Maule Region being the most affected and causing high commotion in the O'Higgins and Bio-bío regions, which were affected by the earthquake of 2010.

Text from Wikipedia, “2012 Constitución earthquake”, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Quoted as written; the full article has the rest.

What happened

The USGS’s account of the effects of this earthquake.

One person died from a heart attack at Parral, at least 11 people injured in the Santiago area and 3 injured in Bio-Bio. Some buildings damaged slightly at Santiago. Felt (VIII) at Cauquenes, Constitucion, Pelluhue and Talca; (VII) at Cobquecura, Linares, Molina, Parral, Pelarco, Rengo, Rio Claro and Villa Alegre. Felt strongly throughout south-central Chile. Felt (IV) at Mendoza and San Martin; (III) at Buenos Aires, San Juan and San Rafael, Argentina.

From the USGS event page for usp000jgsw. U.S. Geological Survey text and figures are in the public domain.

Tectonic setting

Why earthquakes happen here, from the USGS tectonic summary.

The March 25, 2012, M 7.1 Maule, Chile earthquake occurred as the result of shallow thrust faulting on or near the subduction interface between the Nazca and South America plates. At the location of this event, the Nazca plate moves east-northeast relative to South America at a velocity of about 74 mm/yr. The Nazca plate, oceanic in origin, subducts eastward beneath the South America plate at a shallow angle from the Peru-Chile Trench. It is seismically active to depths of approximately 200 km adjacent to the epicenter of the March 25th earthquake, though farther north seismicity continues to depths exceeding 600 km.

The March 25th earthquake occurred within the aftershock zone of the damaging M 8.8 Maule earthquake of February 27, 2010, and can also be considered an aftershock of that event. The subduction zone between the Nazca and South America plates has a long history of large megathrust earthquakes, including the largest event ever recorded, a M 9.5 earthquake in 1960, which ruptured a fault mostly to the south of the March 25th earthquake.

Hayes et al. (2016) Tectonic summaries of magnitude 7 and greater earthquakes from 2000 to 2015, USGS Open-File Report 2016-1192. (5.2 MB PDF)

From the USGS event page for usp000jgsw. U.S. Geological Survey text and figures are in the public domain.

Magnitude estimates

The magnitudes the USGS catalog lists for this earthquake, by scale and by who computed them. NCEI’s own scales are in the table above.

Mag.	Scale	Computed by	Notes
7.1	Mww, W-phase moment	USGS National Earthquake Information Center	Preferred · Reviewed
7.12	Mw, moment	ISC-GEM global catalog	Final · ±0.1
6.96	Me, energy	Choy, USGS energy magnitude	Reviewed
7.1	Mww, W-phase moment	Duputel, W-phase inversion	Preliminary

What the record says

NCEI’s account, from the sources it cites.

One person died from a heart attack at Parral, at least 11 people injured in the Santiago area and 3 injured in Bio-Bio. Some buildings damaged slightly at Santiago. Felt (VIII) at Cauquenes, Constitucion, Pelluhue and Talca; (VII) at Cobquecura, Linares, Molina, Parral, Pelarco, Rengo, Rio Claro and Villa Alegre. Felt strongly throughout south-central Chile. Felt (IV) at Mendoza and San Martin; (III) at Buenos Aires, San Juan and San Rafael, Argentina. (reference #1053)

USD 100 million in economic loss (reference #13727)

USD 100 million in total damages (reference #1250)

Sources NCEI cites

The publications NCEI lists for this record. The numbers match the “reference #” notes in its account above.

#1053 National Earthquake Information Center (NEIC) (1971 to 2013). Preliminary Determination of Epicenters (PDE), a weekly and monthly publication, National Earthquake Information Center, U.S. Geological Survey, Golden, Colorado, 1971 to 2013.
#1250 Centre for Research on the Epidemiology of Disasters (CRED) and the U.S. Office of Foreign Disaster Assistance (OFDA) (2001). EM-DAT: The OFDA/CRED International Disaster Database, Universite Catholique de Louvain, Brussels, Belgium, link
#13727 Gallagher Re (2024). Earthquake data (since 2002) including economic losses. Gallagher Re. Provided 31 January 2024.

Other significant earthquakes nearby

Within 200 km, the deadliest first.

More

Significant earthquakes of 2012 The 2000s Every quake the USGS located in 2012 Recent earthquakes near here This day in weather history

Sources

Significant earthquakes from NOAA’s National Centers for Environmental Information, Global Historical Hazard Database, cited as NCEI/WDS, doi:10.7289/V5PN93H7. Public domain. Read 2026-10-01. NCEI earthquake 9920. The written accounts and the magnitude estimates are from the USGS earthquake catalog, event usp000jgsw, matched to this record by time, place and magnitude.