The Largest Earthquake Ever

Scientific American:

This week marks the anniversary of the largest earthquake ever recorded — a magnitude-9.5 earthquake that ripped along the coast of southern Chile on May 22, 1960.
The colossal quake and the powerful tsunami that followed killed more than 1,400 people and left 2 million homeless in Chile. And its devastation reached far beyond South America.
The tsunami swept across the Pacific Ocean, wreaking havoc in Hawaii, the Philippines and Japan; a day after the earthquake, walls of water up to 18 feet (5.5 meters) high rushed ashore at Honshu, Japan's main island, destroying 1,600 homes and killing 138 people.
The colossal quake was what is known as a megathrust earthquake. These giant quakes, the most powerful quakes the planet is capable of unleashing, occur along subduction zones, where one tectonic plate dives beneath another.

That is ridiculous.