Aerial footage shows Chile quake damage

Tsunami warnings stayed in place for hours along Chile’s coastline. The emergency office reported that more than 1 million people quickly evacuated as waves as high as 15 feet flooded coastal cities.

Data released by the tsunami center showed that at 3:47 a.m. a buoy near Hilo measured a 2.3-foot tsunami wave, lasting 16 minutes. A tsunami watch was also issued for Hawaii.

As large tsunami waves were also observed along the Chilean coast, many were concerned that it would do even greater damage.

Chile’s ministry of the interior and public security said 20 people have been injured, but phone networks remain down in parts of the country so the full extent of damage and injury is not yet known. The U.S. National Weather Service issued a tsunami warning for the Pacific island state of Hawaii, but later downgraded that to an advisory. (AP Photo/Luis Hidalgo) Residents gather next to a damaged building after an quake hit areas of central Chile, in Illapel town, north of Santiago, Chile, September 17, 2015.

Overturned cars and splintered boats sat next to furniture, toppled adobe homes and fishing nets tangled in trees.

Researchers with the US Geological Survey say the earthquake’s epicenter was just 85 kilometers (53 miles) west of where the Nazca plate, moving earth-northeast, begins its subduction under the plate carrying South America.

Thousands of terrified residents rushed out onto the streets in the capital Santiago. “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.

Peruvian authorities said waves of less than 1 meter (3 feet) could hit the country’s southern shoreline at 8:30 p.m. local time (2130 ET) and urged people to avoid coastal areas.

The strongest natural disaster ever recorded on Earth happened in Chile – a magnitude-9.5 tremor in 1960 that killed more than 5,000 people.