Atico, Peru, MW 8.4 Earthquake of June 23, 2001

In the late afternoon of June 23, 2001, a colossal earthquake with a magnitude of 8.4Mw took place in the coastal waters off the District of Arequipa and the town of Atico, Peru. The magnitude of the event makes it the largest in the world in the last 25 years. This earthquake caused nearly 2000 deaths, 3,000 injuries, 26,000 homes destroyed, 34,000 damaged homes and left 190,000 people homeless. The Post Earthquake Investigation Committee of the Technical Council on Lifeline Earthquake Engineering (TCLEE), a technical council of the American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE) organized a team of five TCLEE members with support from ASCE to perform a reconnaissance of the lifelines. This report highlights damage and impacts to the various lifelines: Water, Railroads, Highway Systems, Power Systems, Airports, and Communications in southern Peru. This unusual earthquake caused damage in cities 300 to 500 km southeasterly from the original epicenter (Atico) rather than the closer cities, impacting those lifelines. The main geotechnical feature of this event was shaking induced landslides, rock falls, and subsidence associated with poorly compacted fills, steep cut slopes, and differential settlement at cut/fill interfaces.