Two Canberra students on exchange in Chile are relieved to be uninjured after a powerful 8.3-magnitude earthquake struck off the country's central coast on Wednesday.
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ANU students Katie McColl and Rose Rutherford were eating dinner with two of their three housemates inside their Santiago home when the table began shaking.
"We were having dinner. Then the table started moving," Ms McColl said.
"I thought one of my friends was moving the table. Then we saw everything else in the room start moving - we felt it get even stronger."
Ms McColl said her Chilean housemate was immediately worried and instructed the group to dive under the table.
"He said, 'Something's wrong, tremors don't usually last this long'," she said.
"Then it started to get a lot worse. We went under the table and the quake kept going for 2.5 to 3 minutes. It was unusual, they generally last about half a minute. It just kept going."
The 'unusual earthquake' was measured to have a magnitude of 8.3 and caused buildings to sway in the capital Santiago, triggered a tsunami warning and reportedly killed two people.
The group huddled under the table as a wave of aftershocks rattled the room amid the roar of sirens outside.
"They came on quite quickly," Ms McColl said of the aftershocks. "One very prominent one felt a lot like the initial quake."
Ms McColl said the aftershocks gradually lessened and everyone she was with, including a German exchange student, was OK albeit a little shaken.
"Nothing broke or anything like that," she said.
"It was a bit scary. You don't usually experience that kind of thing, especially coming from Canberra.
"We're thinking, 'how bad is this going to get?', given the history, especially the 2010 earthquake [in Chile]."
Ms McColl, who studies international relations, and Ms Rutherford, who studies development studies and environmental science, have been living in Santiago for two months as part of a six-month exchange.
Ms McColl said there had been tremors since she moved to Chile "but I hadn't felt any of them".
As of 11.30pm Wednesday night (12.30pm AEST) the group was recovering inside and studying.
The earthquake was strong enough to rattle buildings but not strong enough to get out of a university test in the morning.
"Everything seems pretty calm now. We're staying inside," Ms McColl said.
"We actually have a test in the morning we're studying for. Someone posted [on an online forum], asking if it was still on. The teacher said, 'unfortunately, yes, it's still going to be on'."
