These are external links and will open in a new window. One million people had to leave their homes in Chile after a powerful quake hit the country's central region. Residents of Illapel, near the quake's epicentre, fled into the streets in terror as their homes began to sway. In the coastal town of Coquimbo, waves of 4. A tsunami alert was issued for the entire Chilean coast but has since been lifted.
Tsunami waves also hit the coast further north and south of the quake's epicentre, with waves half a metre higher than usual as far north as La Punta. Gloria Navarro, who lives in the coastal town of La Serena, said people were "running in all directions". I'm on the coast about km 80 miles south from the worst affected area of Coquimbo. Our house is on top of a cliff and made of wood.
It was shaking and shuddering. At first I thought it was just a tremor but it was really strong and went on for around three minutes. It was much stronger than any tremors I had ever felt before. The local town was evacuated. The restaurant down on the beach is flooded but most things here are returning to normal. Electricity providers said hundreds of thousands of their clients in the worst-affected Coquimbo region had no power.
The quake that rocked Chile on Wednesday was five times more energetic than the one that devastated Nepal back in April. And yet the early indications are that the death toll will be a fraction perhaps a thousandth of what it was in the Himalayan nation. In large part, this is simply down to preparedness. This was Chile's third massive quake in five years; the region all too frequently experiences magnitude 8 events.
As a consequence, the building codes are strict and generally well enforced. It is not perfect. In , an 8. Since then, the Chilean government has spent millions upgrading the country's seismic network of sensors, and made improvements to telecommunications systems that share critical information and warnings.
