Tsunami alerts had been issued in southern Chile and Argentina. They were lifted. An earthquake of magnitude 7.5 was detected off the coast of its two countries, nearly 219 km from the city of Ushuaia (Argentina), reports the United States Institute of Geological Studies (United States Geological Survey) this Friday.
The earthquake was recorded at 9:58 am local (12:58 pm) ten kilometers deep at sea, 218 km south of the locality of Puerto Williams and approximately 2,500 km south of Santiago, according to the national seismological center, dependent on the University of Chile. Replicas are not excluded.
The Chilean authorities had called on Friday to evacuate the coast of the Magallanes region, in the far south of the country, after having expressed an alert in the tsunami.
“We call to evacuate the seaside throughout the Magallanes region,” wrote President Gabriel Boric on his X account, asking the inhabitants to follow the authorities’ recommendations. The call to be evacuated was issued by the national prevention and response to disasters and the hydrographic and oceanographic service of the Chile Navy, before being relayed by the President.
“Everyone resumes their activities”
“Preventive evacuation is over. In other words, everyone resumes their activities. All sectors should operate normally, with the exception of all economic activities on the coast, “said Juan Carlos Andrade, regional director of the Magallanes prevention and response service, around Midi Time Local (5 pm in Paris).
According to the Hora, “the Chilean seismological service reported that the sea has taken up considerably from Puerto Williams beach”, while the inhabitants evacuated their home.
-In Land of Fire, the Argentine authorities had suspended navigation in the region for the next three and a half hours and asked the inhabitants of the Puerto Almanza area, 75 km from Ushuaia and on the east coast of the Beagle canal, to move to higher and safer areas, according to the Argentine Clarin daily.
No alert in Ushuaia
In the city of Ushuaia, “there is no alert,” said TN Pedro Franco television, secretary of civil protection in the province, and “only water activities have been suspended”. “There is no damage to the structures of the buildings”.
Sofia Ramonet told AFP that she was sleeping when she “felt the bed moves a lot” in her apartment on the third floor in Ushuaia. “I looked up to the ceiling where I have a hanging lamp and it moved on one side, on the other. It lasted a considerable time ”. When she looked out the window, she says she saw “a lot of people outside, frightened because they didn’t know what was going on or what to do”.
Chile between two land plates
In Chile of the waves generated by the earthquake, with estimated heights between 0.3 and one meter are expected in the coming hours on the coasts of the Antarctic Peninsula. The Chilean military bases Bernardo O’Higgins and Arturo Prat, in Antarctica, should be the first affected.
Chile is one of the countries that has recorded the most earthquakes in the world. On its territory converge three tectonic plates: the Nazca plate, the South American plate and the Antarctic plate.
In 1960, the city of Valdivia (south) had been devastated by an earthquake of magnitude 9.5, considered to be the most powerful ever recorded, which killed 9,500 people. In 2010, an 8.8 magnitude earthquake, followed by a tsunami, caused more than 520 dead.
