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Terrifying moment earthquake hits supermarket in Chile

The terrifying moment an 8.3 magnitude earthquake hit a busy supermarket in Chile, has been caught on camera.

In the vision posted to YouTube, customers in the store in Valle lo Campino, in Santiago, can be heard screaming as the ground begins to shake.

Then the lights cut out and the supermarket is plunged into total darkness.


Horrified screams and the sound of stock crashing to the floor can be heard as the earthquake continues to rage.

When the lights do flicker back on products can be seen falling to the floor as the shelves wobble.

Terrified customers can be seen hovering at the ends of the aisles, trying to avoid being hit by any of the falling items littering the floor.

The earthquake, which struck on Wednesday evening, killed at least 12 people and caused widespread destruction.

It was the sixth strongest in the history of Chile and the most powerful anywhere in the world this year, officials have said.

The quake occurred at a shallow depth and the epicenter was 228 kilometers north of the capital Santiago, a city of 6.6 million people, where there were scenes of pandemonium as thousands fled swaying buildings.

Close to one million people were evacuated from Pacific coastal areas as a precaution as Chile sounded a tsunami alert, with warnings issued as far away as Japan and New Zealand.

In the hours that followed, tsunami waves of up to 4.5 meters came crashing onshore in the Coquimbo region, causing extensive damage to the region's port.

Chile lies on what is known as the "Ring of Fire" -- an arc of fault lines that circles the Pacific Basin and is prone to frequent earthquakes and volcanic eruptions.

In February 2010, an 8.8-magnitude quake off the southern Chilean coast killed more than 500 people and inflicted an estimated $30 billion in damage.