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

Thousands of miles away, a tsunami advisory was in effect Thursday for the California coast, but forecasters said they expected only stronger currents.

The natural disaster had a shallow depth of 11km and hit at 7.54pm (22:54 GMT), with the epicenter located about 500 km north of the capital Santiago, seismologists at the University of Chile said.

Chile’s ministry of the interior and public security said 20 people have been injured, but phone networks remain down in parts of the country so the full extent of damage and injury is not yet known.

The US Geological Survey reported the quake as having a magnitude of 8.3.

The Chilean government put the main quake at 8.4 on a slightly different measurement, the Richter scale.

As of this writing Chile authorities were y evacuating coastal regions.

A total of 1,800 people were left without drinking water in the city of Illapel, according to officials. The U.S. National Weather Service issued a tsunami warning for the Pacific island state of Hawaii, but later downgraded that to an advisory.

A MAJOR quake just off the Chilean shore killed five people, forced one million to evacuate and shook the Earth so strongly the tremor was felt across South America. A tsunami watch was also issued for Hawaii.

At least two people were killed and 10 hurt in Chile, where terrified residents rushed out onto the streets in the capital Santiago and beyond, as far away as Argentina.

Hazardous tsunami waves from the quake were possible along the coasts of Chile and Peru within the next several hours, the Pacific Tsunami Warning Center said.

The 8-3 quake has been followed by dozens of aftershocks.

Chile is one of the world’s most earthquake-prone countries because just off the coast, the Nazca tectonic plate plunges beneath the South American plate, pushing the towering Andes cordillera to ever-higher altitudes.