NASA published a satellite image of black smoke covering the northern part of Santiago, Chile following a magnitude 8.8 earthquake on Saturday.

Meanwhile, the southern part of the city was covered by light-colored haze (perhaps pollution and/or dust) and filled a canyon that cuts eastward into the mountains, Nasa said.

The image was captured by Nasa's Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS)on the agency's Terra satellite. The earthquake that hit Chile around 3:00 a.m. on Feb 27 is among the strongest anywhere in the world during the last century.

The satellite images were possibly matching newspapers reports that clouds of dust and smoke were covering Santiago city Saturday morning, delaying the sunset, according to La Vanguardia.es. Also, three factories with chemicals were reportedly burning for more than 24 hours in the northern part of Santiago, the paper noted.

NASA Earthquake