Santiago, Chile – A brilliant bolt of lightning split the sky over Santiago early on October 20 as thunderstorms rolled across the Chilean capital before dawn.

X user Tomás Novoa filmed the storm from a balcony overlooking the city, capturing a flash that turned the clouds purple and lit up the skyline. “We’ve been with the thunder since early in Santiago,” Novoa wrote.

The lightning was reported across the city from around 4:40 a.m. as a frontal system accompanied by an atmospheric river approached central Chile. The country’s meteorological service warned of thunderstorms, hail and wind gusts of 25 to 40 kilometers per hour, with 20 to 40 millimeters of rain expected in a single day.

The national disaster agency, Senapred, placed ten communes in the Metropolitan Region on red alert for landslides, and the government set up security perimeters in Las Condes, Puente Alto and Talagante, where flooding and mudslides hit during the previous week’s storm.

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