A massive 8.8-magnitude earthquake struck Chile early Saturday, shaking the capital of Santiago for 90 seconds and sending tsunami warnings from Chile to Ecuador.
Chile’s TVN cable news channel was reporting 78 deaths, with the toll expected to rise.
The quake downed buildings and houses in Santiago and knocked out a major bridge connecting the northern and southern sections of the country.
It struck at 3:34 a.m. local time and was centered about 200 miles southwest of Santiago, at a depth of 22 miles, the U.S. Geological Survey reported. The epicenter was some 70 miles from Concepcion, Chile’s second-largest city, where more than 200,000 people live.
CNN reports the Pacific is under tsunami warnings for the entire Pacific basin.
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