LONDON — British charities were preparing Saturday to send specialists to Chile after an earthquake which left more than 200 people dead, as Prime Minister Gordon Brown said Britain stood ready to help.
Oxfam said it would dispatch a five-strong team from Colombia of water engineers, logistics specialists and its humanitarian coordinator for Latin America in response to the massive 8.8-magnitude quake.
The charity has teams operating in Haiti, which is struggling to get back on its feet after an earthquake which devastated the capital Port-au-Prince on January 12.
Jeremy Loveless, Oxfam's Deputy Humanitarian Director, said: "Chile is a developed country with a very capable government and while it is unlikely that this disaster will be as severe as what we saw last month in Haiti, we want to be in place to help as soon as possible."
Save the Children said it was assessing the situation and ShelterBox, which sends emergency tents into disaster zones, said it would send staff to Chile.
Brown said: "Our thoughts and prayers are with the people of Chile.
"The people of Chile are in agony today but Britain stands ready to help. We will do whatever we can."
Foreign Secretary David Miliband said he was "shocked and saddened" by the news of the second major earthquake to hit the Americas in as many months following the Haiti quake.
"I send my deepest sympathy to all those affected," he said in a statement, and echoed Brown's pledge of support for the Chilean people.
Miliband said he had no information yet of any British casualties, but he added that the efforts of British embassy staff in Santiago to trace British nationals was being hampered by "significant communications difficulties".
The massive 8.8-magnitude earthquake that struck central Chile early on Saturday killed at least 147 people, said Carmen Fernandez, director of the Chilean National Emergency Office (ONEMI).
Nations around the Pacific, the world's largest ocean, began scrambling to evacuate coastal areas on Saturday as officials warned of possible "widespread damage" from walls of water that may reach as high as three metres.
"The wave is spread out across the entire body of water in the Pacific," US National Weather Service meteorologist Eric Lau told AFP.
"It will stop once it hits the landmasses on the other side of the Pacific, in Asia," he added, saying "we could be looking at an all-day event."
The massive quake early on Saturday plunged much of the Chilean capital Santiago into darkness, snapping power lines and severing communications. The international airport was closed after being damaged.
"It was the worst experience of my life," said 22-year-old Sebastian, standing outside his house in eastern Santiago.
It was the second major earthquake to hit the region in seven weeks after up to 300,000 people were killed in Haiti last month.
AFP journalists spoke of walls and masonry collapsing in Santiago while people in pyjamas fled onto the streets as buildings "shook like jelly".
Many Chileans were still in nightclubs partying at the start of the weekend when the quake struck before dawn.
"Friends who were at clubs said it was pandemonium," Santiago resident Maren Andrea Jimenez, an American UN demography expert, told AFP.
"It was scary! Plaster began falling from the ceiling. My dogs freaked out. I ran out and found everyone was totally drunk, it was Friday night."
She added that since then the ground had not stopped shaking, as the US Geological Survey said there had been more than 34 aftershocks ranging from 4.9 to 6.9 in magnitude.
Pledges of aid also came pouring in, with the European Union saying it would provide about three million euros ($A4.58 million) in immediate assistance.
Television images showed destroyed or heavily damaged buildings and debris-strewn streets, while fires raged in some places.
A huge wave measuring 2.34 metres crashed onto the Chilean coastal town of Talcahuano just after the quake struck at 3:34am (1734 AEDT).
A partial evacuation of Easter Island, home to about 4,000 people and its mysterious statues, was also ordered, but the tsunami wave was not as big as feared, reaching just over 30cm.
Meanwhile, about 144,500 residents in coastal areas of Hawaii were being told to evacuate on Saturday as sirens sounded around the island chain for the first time in 16 years to alert residents to the possibility of destructive waves.
"If you live anywhere in the evacuation zone, you have to evacuate," John Cummings, Oahu Emergency Management Department spokesman, told local media.
"We're going to treat this as a destructive-type tsunami."
Emergency services in Hawaii were laying on fleets of public buses to provide free transport for anyone needing to leave evacuation zones.
The US Geological Survey (USGS) said the quake hit about 115km northeast of Concepcion, and about 325km northeast of Santiago.
Concepcion was said by local TV to be among the first Chilean cities hit by tsunami waves, but a huge arc of nations around the Pacific, from New Zealand to Japan, also went on tsunami alert.
Asian nations have been on heightened alert ever since a massive 2004 tsunami that killed more than 220,000 people around the Indian Ocean.
In the low-lying Philippines, officials warned residents in coastal areas to be on standby for an evacuation, and the Japanese government was on standby to help.
Earthquake-prone Chile lies along the Pacific rim of fire and is regularly rocked by quakes, but damage is often limited as they mostly hit in desert regions that are sparsely populated.
In May 1960 up to 5700 people were killed in the Great Chilean Earthquake, which was rated 9.5 on the Moment Magnitude Scale and triggered a huge tsunami that reached as far as eastern New Zealand.
