Chile races to find quake survivors

The aftermath of a massive earthquake recorded off the coast of Chile.

AAP

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Chile earthquake and tsunami

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CHILEAN rescue teams are racing to find survivors in mountains of rubble after one of the biggest earthquakes on record killed more than 700 people and left scores trapped in ruined buildings.

With aftershocks still rattling the shaken country - around 115 since Saturday's quake - operations are centred on the badly hit second city of Concepcion, where the mayor has pleaded with national authorities to send urgent help.

President Michelle Bachelet says Chile's earthquake killed at least 708 people - sharply increasing the known death toll.

There was relief around the Pacific as more than 50 countries and territories along an arc from New Zealand to Japan cancelled warnings after their biggest alert since the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami.

But Bachelet said Saturday's 8.8-magnitude quake, the seventh largest ever recorded, has affected two million people as the South American nation counts the cost from its worst natural disaster in 50 years.

After touring the worst affected areas by plane, Bachelet addressed the nation on Sunday, saying it's hard to imagine the extent of the disaster, which sliced highways in two and crumpled buildings and bridges like they were toys.

"The power of nature has again struck our country," she said, declaring six of Chile's 15 regions "catastrophe zones".

After Bachelet's call for calm, firefighters with thermal detectors could be seen on Sunday searching for signs of life amid reports of more than 100 survivors trapped in the rubble of one 15-floor apartment block in Concepcion.

"Time is of the essence to save the people inside this building," mayor Jacqueline van Rysselberghe told national television. "It's a shame that rescue teams could not come to Concepcion yesterday."

Offers of aid poured in from US President Barack Obama, the Red Cross, the European Union, regional neighbours and the International Monetary Fund, but Chile has asked countries to hold off until the emergency needs can be assessed.

Chile does not want "aid from anywhere to be a distraction" from disaster relief, Foreign Minister Mariano Fernandez said, adding: "Any aid that arrives without having been determined to be needed really helps very little."

Officials say 1.5 million houses and buildings were destroyed or badly damaged in the quake. Roads in Concepcion, home to around half a million people, are littered with overturned cars and piles of debris.

Tsunami waves of up to three metres crashed into the Chilean coast on Saturday and killed at least five people on the remote Robinson Crusoe islands out in the Pacific.

Fears a massive wave had been generated that could cause death and destruction on the scale of 2004 Asia tsunami proved unfounded, but Japan evacuated more than 320,000 people as it prepared for the worst.

Big waves did crash into French Polynesia, roaring across the Pacific at jetspeed, but by the time they hit Japan up to 24 hours after the quake they were little more than one metre at their highest.

It was central Chile that bore the brunt of the tsunami damage and there were surreal scenes in the port of Talcahuano, near Concepcion, where trawlers carried inland lay marooned next to abandoned cars in the town square.

Further north in Curico, the quake destroyed about 90 per cent of the town's historic centre.

In Santiago, about 325km northwest of the epicentre, some people were still in the nightclubs and bars celebrating the start of the weekend when the quake struck just after 3am.

The capital was plunged into near darkness as power and communications lines were snapped and roofs came down. Santiago airport was closed.

"It was the worst experience of my life," said 22-year-old Sebastian, standing outside his house in eastern Santiago.

"Friends who were at clubs said it was pandemonium," said Santiago resident Maren Andrea Jimenez, an American expert working for the United Nations. "It was scary! Plaster began falling from the ceiling."

Pope Benedict XVI said in a Sunday message to pilgrims at the Vatican that he's praying for the people of Chile and other populations in the Pacific "tested by such a serious calamity".

Unlike Haiti, struck by a devastating 7.0 magnitude earthquake on January 12 which killed 217,000 people, Chile is one of Latin America's wealthiest countries and has adapted its defences since a world record quake in 1960.

But the total value of economic damage is still likely to range between $US15 billion ($A16.88 billion) and $US30 billion ($A33.77 billion), or 10-15 per cent of Chile's real gross domestic product, the US risk modelling firm EQECAT predicted.

The epicentre of Saturday's quake was a few hundred kilometres north of the biggest earthquake on record, a 9.5-magnitude monster in May 1960 that killed up to 5,700 people.

View Flickr.com photos from the earthquake in Chile.