Massive 8.8-magnitude earthquake hits Chile
The earthquake, which is being hailed as the strongest that the country has experienced in the last 25 years, was pegged to have occurred 91 km (56 mi) northeast of the city of Concepcion, and approximately 317 km (197 mi) from the Santiago, the country’s capital. A tsunami warning had already been issued for Chile, Peru and Ecuador by the US, which was later also extended to Colombia, Central America and Antarctica. Japan has also issued a tsunami warning in the Pacific area.A later aftershock was recorded to have occurred in the same area, logging in with a magnitude of 6.2 approximately 18 minutes later, while a second was also recorded an hour and a half later at 5.5 magnitude.
Local media are reporting that there had been a confirmed count of 16 deaths so far, according to a report by the BBC. However, the earthquake managed to disable most of Chile’s public information sources, with many of their news websites and radio stations either down or inaccessible.
