Chile rattled by successive tremors, downgrades tsunami warning

Chile's Interior Ministry said on Twitter that the first tremor of magnitude 7.1 struck at 8.36 p.m. 216 km northeast of the O'Higgins Chilean scientific base, and called for the coastal regions of Antarctica to be evacuated because of a tsunami risk.

Two tremors hit Chilean territory minutes apart on Saturday evening, first in Antarctica followed by a second close to the capital Santiago. Chile's Interior Ministry said on Twitter that the first tremor of magnitude 7.1 struck at 8.36 p.m. 216 km northeast of the O'Higgins Chilean scientific base, and called for the coastal regions of Antarctica to be evacuated because of a tsunami risk. It also sent a message to Chileans' cellphones around the country, urging people to abandon coastal areas, though the ministry later said this was sent in error. At 9.07 p.m. local time, a tremor of magnitude 5.6 struck the Chile-Argentina border region, the GFZ German Research Center for Geosciences said, at a depth of 133 km and 30km east of Santiago.

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