stay with cnn for more. i want to thank all of my experts tonight. thank you so much for joining us. "ac 360" starts right now. briefly evacuated from low-lying areas. the strongest earthquake ever recorded also happened in chile in 1960. the 9.5 tremor that killed more than 5,000 people. we're covering this story from every angle.

bigger stories, the escaped inmates from this women's prison. authorities are having to deal with this earthquake and track down these inmates. so these are the latest bits of information we're getting. electricity has been knocked out, communication is not fully up and running. so we're working to get you more as we get further away from this earthquake. >> i know authorities talked about flying in more security personnel to deal with that prison escape. this is an area, shasta, that's used to large earthquakes. >> reporter: absolutely. the deadliest earthquake in history happened in chile in 1960. 5,000 people died back then.

even more recently, just four years ago, 500 people were killed after an 8.8 magnitude quake. they died mostly from flooding. the government was so slow to respond or to issue tsunami warnings. so this time around, that's why we're seeing this very proactive, some would say over cautious response. they're going to maintain the tsunami warnings for another six hours. they don't want people feeling secure and moving back to the coast just yet. they want to make sure the danger is past. >> i want to bring in our chad myers. walk us through the location and the tsunami warnings. >> about 60 miles away from that town. that is the area that would have seen the waves the quickest, right along the shore.

there were waves that were generated up this way. the reason why the waves didn't get up here and why the watches are canceled is because waves typically go in a straight line, not typically around a corner. if we get any type of advisory for hawaii, that wave could get there somewhere around 3:00 in the morning hawaiian standard time. but right now they're saying we're watching the buoys, all of these buoys, all in a line like this, waiting to see if any of them begin to what we stay pop. these are called dart buoys. when they do this up and down, that rhythmic motion, that means they've seen something. so that means there could be this wave moving across the ocean. but if we knew there was a bigger wave, we would have a lot more concern at this point in time.

there was significant shaking called strong to very strong. i will tell you this, because it was offshore by 60 miles, the shaking we felt in southern california over the weekend was about the same. anderson? >> interesting. just in terms of the frequency of this, how many great earthquakes are there per year above 8.0? >> one per year. this should be our only one. we talked about the 6. 2 after shocks. there's a significant chance of at least a 7 or greater after shock. so if there's a 9 earthquake, there could be an 8 after shock. if there's a 6, there could be a 5. we go one full order down the line. so i think there's going to be much more shaking tonight. some of these buildings were already cracked. that's why they don't want to be in the way of these cracked buildings if another 7.0 continues to shake that structure. >> we're joined by david gallo and cnn's safety analysis david soucie.

david gallo, just realistically, if what they've seen this far this afternoon, they've seen six-foot waves, they're keeping these warnings in effect out of caution. but you think the worst of the danger is past? >> it seems like that. the scientists keep a close eye and they've pulled back on all the watches and warnings. and the system is working. >> we have just gotten word, two confirmed dead, three seriously injured. in terms of -- david soucie, you worked in the north ridge quake, worked in the north ridge quake, you do a lot of analysis of safety. how big -- what kind of damage do you think -- 8.2, depending on how strong the structures are, can cause a lot of damage. >> it can and it did in the north ridge earthquake. but the big challenge is just the emotional part of it.

she said they're camping out. that's what we experienced there. every time we would go to a house, and i was there during the after shocks. you never know when it's going to happen, how strong it's going to be. it's frightening. i ev slept in tents because i didn't know when it was going to hit. >> i remember during the aftermath of the earthquake in haiti, there were a lot of after shocks. it is a very scary thing to experience, especially when there's not a great flow of information. authorities here, that is critical in a case like this, david, for authorities to try to get the information out to people as quickly as possible and get people away from the coastline. i was in sri lanka from the tsunami and in japan. those hit relatively quickly, didn't they >> yeah, sure. these did too. they immediately saw waves to the north and south. they do move across the ocean

incredibly past, 500 miles per hour. >> and after shocks, can those cause tsunamis? >> sure. typically not as big as the main shock. in the 2010 case, they had about a dozen magnitude 6 after shocks within ten days. so they went on and on for days. >> we see these images of people evacuating from coastal areas. is it as simple as getting to higher ground? >> i think generally it is. it means listening to the local authorities. a lot of it depends on the shape of the sea floor in the area. but the individual locations, under how far they need to evacuate. >> we're getting new images that have just come in. obviously you see some fires. david, that's the kind of thing you maybe don't expect in the wake of an earthquake. but all sorts of things can happen, fires can break out. >> typically do. you have downed power lines,

anything going into the home gets severed, disconnected. and also the structures. we spent a lot of time in north ridge inspecting every structure that was dwelling for people. because you get, especially on a lateral, you get these step stone cracks that are separating. every time there's an after shock, you have the potential of that continuing to propagate. >> so you're in a building that can survive the initial quake and are weakened with these after shocks. >> absolutely. >> i appreciate your time. we'll be keeping an eye on this throughout the hour. you can follow me on twitter. we'll bring you any new developments. also tonight, breaking news in the search for malaysian airlines flight 370. the search area has shifted yet again. we'll have a live update from australia. and why officials say this could be going on for a long, long time. and the death toll rising now from the landslide in washington state.

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we're going to be keeping a

>> appreciate the updates. transcripts of conversations between the plane and air traffic control have been released. but there's nothing in it that can answer the question what happened. and a senior malaysian official confirming the malaysian government has received an fbi report on the pilot and co-pilot and what was on their flight simulators.

apparently no leads there. with lead after lead turning up nothing, the answers family members want are getting more out of reach. jim sciutto reports. >> reporter: they were scouring the indian ocean from the air and the sea. but all the clues so far have turned out to be false leads. ocean trash and dead jellyfish. today, the australian officer in charge for flight 370 made clear the end is nowhere in sight. >> this could drag on for a long time. it's not something necessarily going to be resolved in the next two weeks. >> reporter: equally stalled is the investigation into why flight 370 vanished. today, authorities released the full transcript of radio chatter between air traffic control and the cockpit. back and forth perfectly routine. air traffic control, 370,

cleared for takeoff. good night. the cockpit responded, 32 right, cleared for takeoff. malaysian 370, thank you. bye. this has led malaysian authorities and experts to declare the transcript neither abnormal or suspicious. >> the transcript had no clues of criminal activity. as transcripts go, and i've read a lot of them, this one was pretty clean. >> reporter: still, officials' belated correction to the pilot's last transmission have critics again pointing to continuing confusion and contradiction in the investigation. now malaysian authorities are set to ask for more help. malaysia's defense chief arriving in hawaii where he will meet chuck hagel and possibly ask for more u.s. military assets designed for deep water search and recovery.

authorities have promised the family members of loved ones a private, behind closed doors briefing with experts. experts there to answer questions, including how they have determined what the new search zones are. they won't be able to answer the questions they want to know most, which is where is that plane, where might the remains be of their loved ones and what brought that plane down? i was thinking the name of that british submarine is "tireless." i think it's a fitting name. >> again, the headline right now is this search area has shifted yet again. jim sciutto, thanks. join me now, david soucie, author of "why planes crash." david gallo is with us. cnn aviation analyst and private pilot miles o'brien and richard quest.

david gallo, you look at that new search area and you can call it a shift. but that's a new area. >> it's a whole new area, anderson. it's surprising in a way, but it looks like they're working their way up that arc. there was that southern arc and they must be adjusting it. i heard about five different things in that last report that are all brand new. so this is interesting. >> what's brand new? >> the british submarine being brought in, the shift, why the shift now? are we just giving up completely on the other location or is there new evidence that says we're in the wrong place. >> it seems like they have exhausted -- they've been searching since it was friday, they moved that search area. maybe they have exhausted the area of searching and they have to move. >> well, except if they are following the arc, then i think they're adjusting. if they're looking at currents and waves, maybe models are

predicting they were in the wrong area. but this is not a slight shift. we're over totally different kinds of sea floor. i just feel bad. it's got to be tough on the crews out there. >> exhausting. david soucie, you know, a skeptic would say look, nobody has any idea. they're estimating the altitude, they're estimating the speed of the aircraft. there's a huge range in those estimates. >> yeah. this altitude is another bit of information. no one has said we don't know the altitude. up to now, we know it was flying at 35,000 feet. i speculated earlier it was at 12,000 feet. everybody said no, it couldn't have been that. they just plain don't know. they're trying to do everything they can with what they have, but they don't have much. >> richard? >> they have two pieces of information. the radar data after the 1:19

transponder switch off. the military data in the straits of malacca and they have the satellite hand shakes. the prime minister of malaysia and australia, the transport minister, the wing commander, everybody has said, this is the best they've got. that's why i'm not really surprised to see them, frankly, making it up as they go along. because they've only got those two pieces -- >> that's what they're doing, they're making it up. they're estimating, saying if the teed was such and such and the altitude was such and such, let's look here. >> they are using that very small two pieces of information, refining, recalibrating, but that is it. but if there is other data, they ain't told us. >> miles o'brien, what do you make of this shift? >> we know from these hand

shakes, we can speculate pretty well as to when the flight ended. it was either the last full hand shake or this half hand shake. that means the plane was in the air for about seven hours. but that's all we know. imagine if we have this last radar return, and it gives you a rough altitude in speed. there's still seven hours that has transpired afterwards that we don't know what happened, whether the speed changed, whether the altitude changed. and we're not certain it was flown to fuel starvation. that's way too many variables to come up with a concerted search area. frankly, i'm growing pessimistic they'll ever find any wreckage. >> why, because of the length of time? >> it's the length of time but the sheer size of the ocean and the fact that, yes, we know it's on this giant circle somewhere on the planet.

we presume the information to be relatively accurate. but with that other information, what was the range of the aircraft? that still is a giant, giant area. you know, we're talking about ten aircraft that are looking. ten aircraft that are look in this giant ocean with no specific location. >> david? >> just because you have range and a distance, you don't know whether that aircraft -- you don't have any idea what was going on. if the autopilot was disengaged, it would have been a lot less stable. >> in terms of the investigation, this coming out, our david fuentes, former assistant fbi director, saying the fib has given over to the malaysians the information that they have. nothing apparently -- let me

make sure i get this right. on the flight simulator and the pilot's laptop, nothing suspicious. an official also confirming nothing negative was found. so all those questions about, is there something on the laptop, is there something on the simulator? from our reporting, it seems not, richard. >> and in that information, the pendulum swings back the other way. when there were all these leaks about flight plans erased and data -- >> a reporter from "usa today" was saying her reliable malaysian government source was saying that the pilot was the one under suspicion. >> and the pendulum swung right over to the pilot must have done it. then we discovered it was not erased, it was just written over. this is, without doubt, i don't know how many people have to say this, but this is without doubt unprecedented. not any one of us who has looked

at this for many years has ever seen anything like it. and if they have, please do speak up now. >> and miles o'brien, the pendulum has swung away from the pilots and co-pilot. >> in some quarters. i'm not big on the pendulum idea. i would like to have the full menu laid out. each matter leads us in a certain directional. it's very difficult to exclude almost anything still. >> they also said that the malaysian source that they checked the websites, they scoured the websites the two men had visited and also found nothing in any of that data that would raise suspicion. david gallo, how significant is this submarine? unless you have a debris field, is a sub any good? >> in the france 447, the french

had a military submarine on scene. i assume that's part of the role here, because military subs don't go near as deep as the sea floor is here. it's too deep. they don't normally carry the sides of side scan that can scour the bottom. maybe it has it but it would be classified. but it remains to be seen what the mission of the sub is. >> they would not be involved -- one of the things that kim was saying about the sub, they sometimes look for ships on the surface during their regular duties but they wouldn't be looking for debris? >> i think they could, but i would be surprised. maybe that's true, too. >> again, looking for the pinger, the clock is ticking on that. if it's even working at full

strength, which we don't know based on what you heard from an auditor on how malaysian airlines had stored devices in the past. so a lot of questions remain whether this is out there pinging. we're going to have more from our panel. follow us on twitter. tweet us with your questions. coming up, if any wreckage from the flight is found at the bottom of the ocean, we could be talking about deep water, far deeper than a human can go. we'll look at the technology behind how wreckage is salvaged from those kind of depths. and the latest on the earthquake that hit off the coast of chile.

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