Tsunami possible in Chile after major quake, red alert in force

Baku. 17 September. REPORT.AZ/ Chile’s National Office of Emergency of the Interior Ministry (ONEMI) issued a nation-wide red alert, Report informs referring to Russian Sputnik. 

According to the information, the 8.3-magnitude earthquake hit the central Coquimbo Region, located about 500 kilometers (310 miles) from Chile’s capital Santiago, at around 22:54 GMT on Wednesday, according to the US Geological Survey (USGS). Its epicenter was located at a depth of 12.5 kilometers (7.7 miles) about 5 kilometers west of Illapel, the capital of the Choapa Province in the Coquimbo Region.

USGS first put the quake’s magnitude at 7.9, later revising it to 8.3. According to ONEMI, the quake had a magnitude of 8.4.

In a Wednesday statement, ONEMI declared a national red alert and a tsunami warning in effect starting from Wednesday. According to the government agency, "an evacuation of the entire national coastline" was requested at around 20:03 local time (23:03 GMT) on Wednesday.

Local reports said that the first tsunami waves reached Chile’s coast late on Wednesday, flooding coastal towns.

A woman was reportedly killed after a wall collapse and about a dozen other people were injured in Illapel.

The Pacific Tsunami Warning Center (PTWC) has issued hazardous wave warnings for Chile, Peru, Hawaii and French Polynesia.