300 female inmates escape prison after Chile quake

More than 300 inmates escaped from a women's prison amid a tsunami alert in northern Chile triggered by an earthquake, the interior minister said late Tuesday.

"Around 100 special forces will be sent to the area" of the remote town of Iquique, around 200 kilometres from the Peruvian border, to deal with the problem, Rodrigo Penailillo told reporters.

He did not specify how they escaped, after a 8.2-magnitude quake hit at 8:46 pm (2346 GMT) around 100 kilometres off the coast, prompting a tsunami warning and widespread evacuations.

Penailillo said he had "no confirmed information" regarding rumours of looting in Iquique that were circulated on social media.