People in Chile are dealing with the damage done by an 8.3 magnitude earthquake. It was the strongest earthquake on earth so far this year.
It was centered about 175 miles from Santiago, triggering tsunami advisories as far away as Hawaii and California.
Carlos Arancibia of Miami was in Chile on business when the earth started to shake beneath him. He spoke with NBC 6 over the phone about what happened.
He said it felt like being on a boat, "It was extremely weird and long and at the beginning you didn't hear any noise. You could just feel the movement, it was a side-to-side movement."
Arancibia said the quake lasted more than three minutes.
People in Chile are used to earthquakes, and their cities are built for them. But most of the damage was done to the country's coastal communities. They're still accessing the damage up and down the entire coast.
"Everything on the coast disappeared. All of the restaurants, the stores, everything disappeared. We have really big ships off the causeway, the cars, all the cars were destroyed," Arancibia said.
Local
More than one million people were evacuated, fearing a tsunami would hit. Parts of the coast were drenched in waves up to 15 feet high.
"There's always that possibility one in ten big earthquakes are foreshocks of a bigger earthquake and there can also be other processes such as landslides that may happen in a delayed fashion," said Mark Simons with California Institute of Technology.
After the initial jolt, people experienced a number of strong aftershocks.
The strongest quake hit this area back in 1960. Since then they've updated building codes and procedures, a move that saved lives in this case.
Arancibia said he is looking forward to returning back to Miami at the end of this month once his business trip is over.
A total of 11 people were killed. Nearly 100,000 are still without power and hundreds of people are staying in shelters.
