Chile Ends Tsunami Alert Following 7.4 Earthquake in Antarctica

By Alexander Villegas and Fabian Cambero

SANTIAGO (Reuters) -Chilean authorities canceled evacuation orders in the far south and Antarctica after a magnitude 7.4 earthquake struck off the coast of southern Chile Friday morning, prompting evacuations in the region due to tsunami threats.

The United States Geological Survey said the quake struck at a depth of just 10 km (6 miles) in the Drake Passage between Cape Horn and Antarctica just after 9 a.m. local time.

Chile's SENAPRED disaster agency said there was no damage to critical infrastructure or harm to people, and canceled the evacuation orders later in the afternoon.

Before the cancellation, authorities said around 2,000 people in the remote south and bases in Antarctica had evacuated to higher ground.

Videos on social media showed people calmly evacuating as sirens blared in the background. Photos showed parks and other evacuation points filled with students, workers and other residents throughout Chile's southern region.

At a press conference Friday afternoon, Alicia Cebrian, director of SENAPRED, said an "instrumental tsunami" was recorded in the Prat Base in Antarctica, with a variation of 6 centimeters (2.3 inches) in sea level. She added that variations of up to 90 centimeters could be registered in Chile.

After the press conference, the evacuation order for Antarctica was canceled while the southern Magallanes region remained on alert, with Interior Minister Alvaro Elizalde advising people to stay away from the beach and coastal regions before SENAPRED officially canceled the evacuation orders later in the afternoon.

More than a dozen aftershocks have been detected since the first quake struck.

(Reporting by Alexander Villegas and Fabian Cambero in Santiago, Additional reporting by Rhea Rose Abraham in Bengaluru, Gabriel Araujo in Sao Paulo, Sarah Morland and Brendan O'Boyle in Mexico CityEditing by Chizu Nomiyama, Matthew Lewis, Louise Heavens and Diane Craft)