The airport in Santiago, Chile was closed for up to three days after a catastrophic earthquake, with a magnitude of 8.8, struck early Saturday.
Avianca and Copa airlines both announced they were cancelling flights to Santiago at least on Saturday and Sunday. An Avianca flight headed from Bogota to Santiago Saturday morning was diverted first to Mendoza, Argentina, and then to Buenos Aires.
Among the flights affected: nonstop flights by American and LAN airlines from Miami to Santiago.
The Santiago airport suffered major damage, including smashed windows, partially collapsed ceilings and destroyed pedestrian walkways in the passenger terminals.
Santiago's subway was shut as well and hundreds of buses were trapped at a terminal by a damaged bridge.
Chile's main seaport, in Valparaiso about 75 miles from Santiago, was ordered closed while damage was assessed.
Princess Cruises said it had changed some of its port calls Saturday and Sunday as a result of the quake, but it expected that its Star Princess would be able to dock in Valparaiso as scheduled on Tuesday and depart later that same day on another cruise.
Holland America Line had four ships in the Pacific Ocean at the time of the quake but said none was affected, although the ms Zaandam and ms Maasdam remained in open ocean until the risk of a tsunami caused by the quake passed.
The quake struck after concert-goers had left South America's leading music festival in the coastal city of Vina del Mar, where organizers canceled performances on Saturday, the final night of the festival. But it caught partiers leaving a disco.
``It was very bad. People were screaming. Some people were running, others appeared paralyzed. I was one of them,'' Julio Alvarez told Radio Cooperativa.
A tsunami set off by the early-morning quake also affected travel as it rushed ashore in parts of Hawaii and French Polynesia, but no serious damage was immediately reported. In Hawaii, where 100,000 people were evacuated from low-lying areas and roads into Waikiki were closed, waves were in 20-minute surges at 5.5 feet in Hilo and 6 feet at Maui.
Hilo International Airport, located along the coast, was closed.
The Port of Honolulu was closed in anticipation of the tsunami. Norwegian Cruise Line's Pride of America, which cruises the Hawaiian islands, had been scheduled to dock in Honolulu Saturday morning, but instead remained at sea where it rode out the tsunami.
Nearly 50 countries and island chains remained under tsunami warnings, from Antartica to Russia's far northeast.
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