Mexico’s western coast was under tsunami watch after a huge earthquake rocked Chiapas, killing at least five people.
The quake of magnitude 8.2 is thought to be the strongest for more than a century.
Chiapas Governor Manuel Velasco Coello said that there had been at least a dozen aftershocks and advised people in coastal areas to evacuate for fear of tsunamis.
Warnings were issued for the Pacific coastlines of Guatemala, Honduras, El Salvador and Costa Rica.
"It’s a big quake. It’s about 70 miles offshore, but it’s not an unheard of quake," Randy Baldwin, a geophysicist at the U.S. Geological Survey National Earthquake Information Center, told NBC News.
"Any time that you have a large quake like this, that is shallow, you can expect aftershocks to occur for even the next several months."
It was even felt in Mexico City where it knocked out power in some areas.
Mexico City is more than 500 miles from the quake’s epicentre.
