About a million evacuated after Chile quake
A powerful 8.3-magnitude earthquake has struck off Chile, killing at least five people, forcing the evacuation of one million and sparking warnings that tsunami waves could reach as far as Japan.
Buildings swayed as far away as in Buenos Aires, Argentina. In Chile, people ran out into the streets in terror.
TV footage showed stores with floors strewn with a mushy mess of broken bottles and other spilled merchandise.
It was the sixth most powerful quake in the history of quake-prone Chile and the strongest anywhere in the world this year, Deputy Interior Minister Mahmoud Aleuy said.
Giving the death and evacuation toll, Aleuy said 245,000 families were left without power.
Central Choapa province closest to the epicenter was declared a catastrophe zone and placed under military rule.
The United States Geological Survey (USGS) put the shallow offshore quake at a magnitude of 8.3 and said it hit 228 kilometers (about 140 miles) north of Santiago, a city of 6.6 million people.
"The motion began lightly, then stronger and stronger," said Santiago resident Jeannette Matte.
"We were on the 12th floor and we were very afraid because it was not stopping. First it was from side to side, then it was like little jumps."
Interior Minister Jorge Burgos said evacuation of coastal towns and cities had been ordered as a precautionary measure. Classes were cancelled in coastal areas.
"We know there could be more aftershocks and so we must continue to evaluate the situation minute-by-minute," Bachelet said.
A tsunami warning was initially in place for the whole of Chile and Peru's Pacific coastline.
Among the dead were a woman in Illapel, close to the epicenter, and an 86-year-old man in Santiago, where there were scenes of pandemonium as thousands fled swaying buildings.
Hardest-hit Illapel, a coastal city of 30,000, saw its electricity fail and several homes were damaged.
In coastal La Serena, in the north of Chile, "people were running in all directions," said resident Gloria Navarro.
A similar fear seized residents in Argentina.
"We went into a panic and the floor kept moving. We went out into the hallway and down the stairs," Celina Atrave, 65, who lives in a 25-story high-rise near downtown Buenos Aires, told AFP.
The quake, which struck at 7:54 pm (2254 GMT), hit at a depth of eight kilometers, USGS said. Seismologists also reported multiple aftershocks, some of them above 6.0.
The Chilean government put the main earthquake at 8.4 on the Richter scale.
(Photo: AFP)