MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Earthquake devastates north of Chile

At least eleven people died and hundreds were injured during a powerful earthquake that rocked Tuesday morning the north of Chile. People in the cities of Arica and Iquique, and in near by villages panicked into the streets as devastation extended. Energy and drinking water services were interrupted.

Six of the victims are members of an only family. They were crushed by tons of rocks as they were placing flowers and candles at a shrine to San Lorenzo on the side of the highway linking the port city of Iquique and the town of Alto Hospicio.

Traffic between Iquique and Arica in the Peruvian border is interrupted at several points because of landslides.

Schools were closed throughout the region, and emergency workers were dispatched to set up shelters for those left homeless.

The U.S. Geological Institute in Boulder, Colorado estimated the quake's strength at 7.9 on the open-ended Richter scale with the epicentre located in the Andes, 115 kilometres north of Iquique.

Chilean President Ricardo Lagos who was in Sweden called off his visits to the Netherlands and Spain and is expected to arrive in the devastated Iquique area any time tonight. The most damaged areas are Regions I and II particularly in Tarapaca, fortunately with a low population density.

Later in the day tremors were also felt in the central region of Chile, including Valparaiso and in the south of Peru next to the Chilean border.

A 4,3 strength quake also shook for several seconds the capital of Ecuador, Quito, with no major consequences.

However seismologists indicated that the chain of quakes along the South American Pacific rim is not necessarily linked.

Carlos Aranda from the University of Chile Seismology Department described the phenomenon in northern Chile as typically "cordilleran", rather rare "that occur every now and then and is not one of the catastrophic earthquakes common to Chile".

In Chile the really destructive quakes are coastal, with an epicentre 30 kilometres deep and "this makes them really dangerous for populated areas", explained Mr. Aranda.

However he did admit that "this was the greatest tremor in Chile in recent years" and was caused by a collision in the border line of the "Nascar and Southamerican plates, at a considerable depth