A powerful earthquake of magnitude of 7.0 struck just outside the city of Arequipa, the second most populated in Peru, near the coast on Friday, local officials said, adding no deaths or injuries had been reported.

The Peruvian government said on social media it was monitoring “to assess the damage and determine the actions to be taken”.

The U.S. National Tsunami Warning Center had said there was a tsunami threat from the quake, adding waves of between 1 and 3 metres (9.84 ft) above the tide level had been recorded along some parts of Peru’s coast.

Peru’s Prime Minister Gustavo Adrianzen, however, said the tsunami warning in the coast of Arequipa had been discarded.

Carlos Zanabria, an adviser to the regional government of Arequipa, told local radio station RPP, material damage had been reported in some districts and residents had left their homes in fear, but he had heard no reports of death or injury.

Flavio Aranguren, the mayor of the Yauca district in the province of Caraveli, Arequipa, told RPP some walls of houses in the district have collapsed. He also said no fatalities had been reported.

Ecuador and Peru are part of the so-called Pacific Ring of Fire, an extensive area that surrounds the Pacific Ocean where clashes between the continental plates are frequent.

(Reuters)