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People watched the ocean on Cerro Baron hill in Valparaiso, after a mass evacuation during a tsunami alert on Wednesday.Credit Rodrigo Garrido/Reuters

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Chile Evacuates Residents After Quake

The Chilean authorities ordered the evacuation of coastal residents after a powerful earthquake struck off the country’s northern coast on Wednesday night.

By REUTERS on Publish Date September 17, 2015. Photo by Esteban Zuniga/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images. Watch in Times Video »

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People fled a supermarket in Santiago as an earthquake struck off the coast of Chile on Wednesday.Credit Martin Bernetti/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

SANTIAGO, Chile — A strong 8.3-magnitude earthquake struck off Chile’s coast on Wednesday, shaking buildings in cities around the country and forcing the authorities to evacuate residents along the 2,690-mile coast after tsunami warnings were issued. At least three people were reported killed.

The quake hit at 7:54 p.m. west of Illapel, about 177 miles north of the capital, Santiago, and was felt in São Paulo, Brazil, more than 2,100 miles away.

Chile’s national emergency service ordered the immediate evacuation of the coast, as well as Easter Island and the archipelago Juan Fernández. President Michelle Bachelet appeared on national television, telling citizens that her government was closely examining the damage.

“Once again we have to confront a tough blow from nature,” Ms. Bachelet said, evoking her nation’s history of quakes.

People evacuated to higher ground in vehicles and on foot in relative calm in parts of the country, as waves began flooding parts of some cities with differing intensity. Waves reached as high as 15 feet in Coquimbo, a port city 285 miles north of Santiago. The flooding spread to much of the city, causing extensive damage, said the city’s mayor, Cristián Galleguillos.

At least one person was killed in Illapel after a wall fell on him in a restaurant, the city’s mayor, Denis Cortés, said on national television. Another death was reported in Coquimbo, while one person was reported missing in Tongoy after his pickup truck fell into the sea, according to a police report. Flooding in Tongoy, a town 225 miles north of Santiago, reached downtown and destroyed a preschool, a police station and a section of a health clinic, the authorities said.

In Monte Patria in northern Chile, a woman, 20, was reported killed after being crushed by rocks that fell on her house.

Adobe homes and infrastructure in towns and rural areas, especially in northern Chile, were seriously damaged, evoking the havoc caused by an 8.2-magnitude earthquake last year.

Chile ranks among the countries that are most vulnerable to earthquakes and has painful memories of a 2010 quake in southern Chile that killed 525 people, many of them in a tsunami in the south-central part of the country.

Tsunami warnings were issued as far away as California and New Zealand.