SANTIAGO: A magnitude 8.3 earthquake struck off the coast of Chile on Wednesday, killing at least five people and slamming powerful waves into coastal towns.

At least five people were killed and 10 hurt in Chile, while a million were evacuated and one person went missing.

The quake and heavy waves caused flooding in coastal towns, damaged buildings and knocked out power in the worst hit areas of central Chile and shook buildings in the capital city of Santiago about 280 kilometres to the south.

Thousands of terrified residents rushed out onto the streets in Santiago. The quake was felt as far away as Argentina, where buildings also swayed.

The United States Geological Survey (USGS) put the shallow offshore quake at a magnitude of 8.3 and said it hit just 228km north of Santiago, a city of 6.6 million people.

The quake, which struck at 7:54 pm, hit at a depth of 8km, USGS said. Seismologists also reported two aftershocks, both above 6.0.

The Chilean government put the main earthquake at 8.0 on the Richter scale.

President Michelle Bachelet said she planned to travel to the areas worst affected by the quake, the biggest to hit the world's top copper producer since 2010.

“Once again we're having to deal with another harsh blow from nature,” Bachelet said in a televised statement.

Interior Minister Jorge Burgos said that the evacuation of coastal towns and cities was ordered as a precautionary measure.

The quake was felt as far away as Buenos Aires, about 1,400km away, while a tsunami warning was initially in place for the whole of Chile and Peru's Pacific coastline.

A 26-year-old woman was killed by a collapsing wall in Illapel and another person died from a heart attack in Santiago, according to media reports.

“We fled our building and everything started to move very strong,” resident Pablo Cifuentes told local Cooperativa radio.

In coastal La Serena, in the north of Chile, “people were running in all directions,” said resident Gloria Navarro.

A similar fear seized residents in Argentina, while El Salvador, in Central America, was also on the lookout for destructive waves.

“We went into a panic and the floor kept moving. 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.

As far as Japan

The Hawaii-based Pacific Tsunami Warning Centre said that “hazardous” tsunami waves were possible for some parts of Chile's shoreline, including above three meters the tide level.

Tsunami waves were also possible along French Polynesia, Hawaii and California, officials said, as well as smaller waves as far afield as Japan and New Zealand.

The 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.

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

And a February 27, 2010 quake that struck just off the coast of Chile's Maule region measured 8.8 in magnitude, making it one of the largest ever recorded.

It killed more than 500 people and inflicted an estimated $30 billion in damages.

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