Powerful earthquake leaves 8 dead in Chile
(Agencies)
Updated: 2005-06-14 13:39

A powerful earthquake rattled Chile's remote northern Andes near the Bolivian border Monday, killing at least eight people and causing widespread damage in several mountain villages.

Interior Minister Jorge Correa said there could be more victims in some isolated communities, but added no details were immediately available because of poor communications.

A video image shows fallen wall in a street after an earthquake hit Iquique, about 1845km (1146 miles) north of Santiago in Chile June 13, 2005. A powerful 7.9-magnitude earthquake shook Chile's northern mining region on Monday, causing at least eight deaths, cutting power and driving residents from their homes in the port city of Iquique. The quake was also felt in the Bolivian capital La Paz and in southern Peru.[Reuters]

The quake had a preliminary magnitude of 7.9, according to both the U.S. Geological Survey and Chilean officials, making it the world's third strongest temblor since the quake that set off an Asian tsunami in December.

Correa said a boulder fell on an automobile killing all five passengers — three adults and two children — near Iquique, a port city 1,200 miles north of Santiago, the capital. The other victims were three elderly men killed in two different Andean villages. One of the victims was a disabled 80-year-old man killed when a wall collapsed at his home.

A resident in the northern Chilean port city of Arica appears next to a rock that fell from a hill in the city during strong earthquake that caused eight dead and widespread damage in several Andean villages in Arica, Chile, Monday, June 13, 2005. [AP]

The government emergency bureau in coastal Iquique said several people were injured but did not provide a number or other details.

The quake struck at 6:44 p.m. and was centered in an unpopulated Andean area, about 940 miles north of Santiago, the capital. It was also felt in several cities in southern Peru and Bolivia, but no victims or major damage were reported in either neighboring country. In the Bolivian capital of La Paz, many people took to the streets in panic.

Power supply and communications were interrupted in the port cities of Iquique, and Arica, near Chile's northern border with Peru, but were being gradually restored two hours after the quake.

After a 9.0 quake near Sumatra in Indonesia spawned the tsunami Dec. 26, a deadly 8.7 temblor struck the same area on March 28.

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