Tsunami advisory for Hawaii, California after Chile quake

A tsunami advisory has been issued for coastal areas of California after a magnitude 8.3 earthquake hit central Chile on Wednesday.

As a result of the massive quake, a Tsunami alert has been issued for Hawaii, ABC News reports.

Waves of 15cm to 20 cm hit the Peruvian coast, and waves of less than 1m were expected in Hawaii around 1.06pm GMT on Thursday, the Pacific Tsunami Warning Centre said.

The USGS reported a number of aftershocks registeres at magnitudes of 6.3 and 6.4.

Right after the tremor, the Pacific Tsunami Warning Center advised Chileans, “Tsunami waves reaching more than three metres above the tide level are possible along some coast of Chile”.

People ran screaming from buildings in Santiago and other cities.

The quake was also strongly felt in some Argentine provinces like Mendoza and in the capital Buenos Aires several buildings were evacuated.

Officials ordered people to evacuate low-lying areas along Chile’s Pacific shore, from Puerto Aysen in the south to Arica in the north. Cars streamed inland carrying people to higher ground. One person died, and marinas and harbors up and down the coast saw extensive damage.

Illapel’s mayor, Denis Cortes, told a local TV station that a woman had been killed in the city, giving no details.

The first quake’s epicenter was about 34 miles west of the inland town of Illapel, Chile, the U.S. Geological Center said. A tsunami of at least 13-feet high strike on the central coast in Chile in the hours after the quake, The Weather Channel reported.

Codelco said none of its workers were injured and there was no damage to its installations following the quake in the world’s top copper exporter.

Of course the strongest earthquake to hit Chile was in 1960.

Speaking to Sky News, journalist Mario Faray described the situation in the city as “total chaos” after a series of tsunami alerts were issued for coastal regions.

In April 2014, a magnitude 8.2 earthquake in northern Chile killed six people and forced a million to leave their homes in the region around Iquique.

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