They heard firefighters urging Talcahuano's citizens to stay calm and stay inside. They heard nothing of a tsunami -- until it slammed into their house with an unearthly roar about an hour after Saturday's magnitude 8.8 quake.

Gatica's house exploded with water. She and her family were swept below the surface, swirling amid loose ship containers and other massive debris that smashed buildings into oblivion all around them.

"We were sitting there one moment and the next I looked up into the water and saw cables and furniture floating," Gatica said.

She clung to her 11-year-old daughter, Ninoska Elgueta, but the rush of water ripped the girl from her hands. Then the wave retreated as suddenly as it came.

Two of the giant containers crushed Gatica's home. A third landed seaward of where she floated, preventing the retreating tsunami from dragging her and other relatives away.

Soon Ninoska was back in her mother's arms -- she had grabbed a tree branch to avoid being swept away and climbed down as soon as the sea receded.

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The magnitude-8.8 quake was felt as far away as Sao Paulo in Brazil -- 1,800 miles (2,900 kilometers) to the east. The full extent of damage remained unclear as scores of aftershocks -- one nearly as powerful as Haiti's devastating Jan. 12 earthquake -- shuddered across the disaster-prone Andean nation.

President Michelle Bachelet declared a "state of catastrophe" in central Chile but said the government has not asked for assistance from other countries. If it does, President Barack Obama said, the United States "will be there." Around the world, leaders echoed his sentiment.

In Chile, newly built apartment buildings slumped and fell. Flames devoured a prison. Millions of people fled into streets darkened by the failure of power lines. The collapse of bridges tossed and crushed cars and trucks -- and complicated efforts to reach quake-damaged areas by road.

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