ASX Today, page-41724

To be more precise, waves propagate from the focus (hypocenter) of the earthquake, several km below the surface.




There is interesting information in the USGS webpage about this earthquake:

https://earthquake.usgs.gov/earthquakes/eventpage/us7000n05d/executive

The focus of the earthquake was 117.4 km deep. Therefore waves propagated 136 km from the focus to the salars (applying Pythagoras' theorem).


Atacama salars are North of Antofagasta and East of Calama, so they are in the most afected area (VII) in the image below.



There is also nice info regarding potential ground movements in relation to liquefaction:

https://earthquake.usgs.gov/earthquakes/eventpage/us7000n05d/ground-failure/about

with Atacama salars in the area of highest potential of liquefaction:

https://earthquake.usgs.gov/earthquakes/eventpage/us7000n05d/map?shakeMapIntensity=false&ground-failure-liquefaction=true
(zoom in)

But all these evaluation maps need to be confirmed by real data from sites.