Villagers flee after tsunami warning

Coastal villages in Chile and Argentina are conducting mass evacuations with many forced to flee on foot over fears a 7.5 magnitude earthquake could trigger a deadly tsunami.

Villages in Chile and Argentina are being forced to evacuate on foot after authorities issued a tsunami warning Friday morning, after a major 7.5-magnitude earthquake struck in the Drake Passage, the body of water separating South America and Antarctica.

“ATTENTION! #SENAPRED, due to the threat of a tsunami, requests the evacuation of the sector of the coastline of the # Magallanes Region,” Chile’s emergency agency SENAPRED wrote on its social media account.

President Gabriel Boric echoed the call for the “evacuation of the coastline throughout the Magallanes region” on his X account.

#Sismo: después del sismo de Magnitud 7.4 a 219 km S de Ushuaia, #Argentina🇦🇷.

🔸️Después de 🚨#Alerta de #Tsunami, Ciudadanos evacúan Punta Arenas y todo el borde costero en la Región de #Magallanes, #Chile.#EG#Georiesgos#Temblor#Terremoto#hoy#urgente#earthquake#quake… pic.twitter.com/HyPnR7Eu10

— ESPECIGEST (@ESPECIGEST) May 2, 2025

Residents of the remote southern Argentine village of Puerto Almanza were also ordered to evacuate the area due to the tsunami threat.

“Residents of the Puerto Almanza area, located approximately 75 kilometres from Ushuaia on the eastern coast of the Beagle Channel, are asked to preventively evacuate the area and move to higher, safer ground,” the government of Tierra del Fuego province wrote on its X account.

The US Geological Survey (USGS) said the quake struck at a shallow depth of 10 kilometres, 219 kilometres from the Argentine city of Ushuaia in Tierra del Fuego province and a similar distance from the Chilean town of Puerto Williams.

It placed the magnitude at 7.4, slightly below the 7.5 reported by Chile’s National Seismological Center.

It struck at 9.58am local time, and several smaller aftershocks were also recorded.

Situated at the southern tip of South America, the Magallanes region is Chile’s second largest but sparsely populated, and lies adjacent to Argentina’s Tierra del Fuego Province.

The governor’s office of Tierra del Fuego said in Argentina “the earthquake was felt primarily in the city of Ushuaia and, to a lesser extent, in other towns throughout the province.” It added that “for the moment there have been no reports of material damage or people affected.”

Citizens evacuate Punta Arenas on foot after an earthquake and tsunami warning. Picture: X

Chile is one of the countries most affected by earthquakes.

Three tectonic plates converge within its territory: the Nazca, the South American, and the Antarctic plates.

In 1960, the southern city of Valdivia was devastated by a magnitude 9.5 earthquake, considered the most powerful ever recorded, which killed 9,500 people.

In 2010, an 8.8 magnitude quake off the coast of central Chile, which triggered a tsunami, left more than 520 dead.

Originally published as Villagers flee after tsunami warning