“We were on the 12th floor and we were very afraid because it was not stopping. Our city panicked”, Cortes said.
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Interior Minister Burgos said evacuation of coastal towns and cities had been ordered as a precautionary measure.
Tsunami waves were also possible along French Polynesia, Hawaii and California, officials said, as well as smaller waves as far afield as Japan and New Zealand.
No major water inundation is expected in California, but officials want residents to stay away from beaches and coastal areas.
A map detailing tsunami threat levels in New Zealand from the Chile earthquake.
In Chile, more than 135,000 families were left without power in the north-central coast area, the National Emergency Office reported, lowering an early figure.
A manager at an apartment block on Gisborne’s marina was not aware of the tsunami warning.
“They are saying all you have to do is run away from the coast”, he said.
Another manager at the Beachside Resort Whitianga says he’s aware of the risk and will be alert to further updates.
Hamish Glendinning told the Herald the quake lasted about one minute and there had already been one aftershock.
“People started screaming that everything was shaking”, he said. “Everything was swaying, we made an escape outdoors where we were safe as we weren’t too sure how sturdy our accommodation was”. Many people were evacuated to higher ground. Around 20 people have been reported injured.
Women hug in fear after fleeing a building in Chile’s capital city Santiago during a strong 7.2-magnitude earthquake.
Moya said he and his wife were in bed and watching television when the quake hit. There have been at least 5 after shocks, 1 strong enough to scramble for the door again.
The United States Geological Survey (USGS) put the shallow offshore quake at a magnitude of 8.3 and said it hit just 228 kilometers (about 140 miles) north of Santiago, a city of 6.6 million people. It said the quake was 5 kilometres below the surface.
State managed coastal and low-lying areas will remain closed on Thursday morning until staff from the state Department of Land and Natural Resources is able to assess ocean conditions following a large earthquake in Chile on Wednesday afternoon. That quake released so much energy, it actually it shortened the Earth’s day by a fraction of a second by changing the planet’s rotation.
At least two people were killed and 10 hurt in Chile, where thousands of terrified residents rushed out onto the streets in the capital Santiago.
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The quake had huge ramifications, both political and practical, prompting the Andean nation to improve its alert systems for both quakes and tsunamis. At the latitude of this event, the Nazca plate is moving towards the east-northeast at a velocity of 74 mm/yr with respect to South America, and begins its subduction beneath the continent at the Peru-Chile Trench, 85 km to the west of the September 16 earthquake.
