Largest Earthquake in History - Magnitude 9.5 near Chile May 22nd 1960

[Kim B]

Wow.

http://www.examiner.com/natural-disasters-in-national/largest-earthquake-history-magnitude-9-5-near-chile-may-22-1960

The world’s largest earthquake in fact was recorded in the same area as February 2010's quake on May 22, 1960. That tremblor was a monstrous 9.5 magnitude quake that claimed 1,655 lives and sent a devastating tsunami as far away as Hawaii, Japan and the Philippines.

Starting on the 21st of May, 1960, southern Chile was struck by a number of quakes that caused damage across a large area.Four foreshocks of magnitude 7.0 or greater were recorded including a 7.9 magnitude temblor near Concepcion.

These culminated with the magnitude 9.5 temblor on the 22nd and an eruption of the Cordon Calle volcano on the 24th.

[Kim B]

Also the resulting tsunami hit Hilo, Hawaii pretty hard.

[Stephen Gerard]

That was the largest earthquake recorded on a seismograph.

According to historical research there were two larger earthquakes but both occurred before the invention of the seismograph.

Both in northern South America:

NOAA 1812 03 26 2107 10.00 -67.00 25 9.6 NOAA XC. .......
NOAA 1827 11 16 23 1.90 -75.60 10 9.7 NOAA EC. .......