A powerful 8.3-magnitude earthquake has struck off Chile, killing at least five people, forcing the evacuation of a million to safer ground and sparking warnings that tsunami waves could reach as far as Japan.
Buildings swayed in Buenos Aires, Argentina, 1500 kilometres away to the east on Wednesday. In Chile, people ran out into the streets in terror.
TV footage showed stores with floors strewn with a colourful and mushy mess of broken bottles, jars and other spilled merchandise.
It was the sixth most powerful quake in the history of geologically volatile Chile and the strongest anywhere in the world this year, Deputy Interior Minister Mahmoud Aleuy said.
Strong aftershocks followed the first quake, and a tsunami alert remained in effect hours later for the Chilean coast. Many people were evacuated to higher ground.
More than 135,000 families were left without power in the north-central coast area, the National Emergency Office reported, lowering an early figure.
Central Choapa province, which is closest to the epicentre, was declared a catastrophe zone and placed under military rule.
The United States Geological Survey put the shallow offshore quake at a magnitude of 8.3 and said it hit 228 kilometres north of Santiago, a city of 6.6 million people.
The Chilean government put the main earthquake at 8.4 on the Richter scale.
"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.
Among the dead were a woman in Illapel, close to the epicentre, and an 86-year-old man in Santiago, where there were scenes of pandemonium as thousands fled swaying buildings.
Hardest-hit was Illapel, a coastal city of 30,000, where electricity failed and several homes collapsed. Around a dozen people were injured.
In coastal La Serena, in the north of Chile, "people were running in all directions", said resident Gloria Navarro.
Waves crashed across costal roads in the regions of Coquimbo and Valparaiso. Rough seas were also forecast for Thursday.
Fear also seized residents in Argentina.
"We went into a panic and the floor kept moving. We went out into the hallway and down the stairs," said Celina Atrave, 65, who lives in a 25-storey high-rise near downtown Buenos Aires.
The Hawaii-based Pacific Tsunami Warning Center said "hazardous" tsunami waves were possible for some parts of Chile's shoreline, including about three metres above the tide level.
Tsunami waves were also possible in French Polynesia, Hawaii and California, officials said, as well as smaller waves as far afield as Japan and New Zealand.
The first tsunami waves struck Chile's coast, including the tourist city of Valparaiso, local television pictures showed, but there were no immediate details of damage or injuries.
A precautionary alert for Peru was later called off, civil defence officials said, but scared residents in the city of Ilo, close to the border with Chile, remained out on the streets and on higher ground nonetheless.
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