A man looks at a collapsed road in Santiago Saturday Feb. 27. The 8.8-magnitude earthquake struck central Chile early Saturday, and hit 200 miles southwest of the capital, with an epicenter just 70 miles from Concepcion, Chile's second-largest city.

The Chilean government has asked the United Nations for support in coping with the impacts of the earth. By Monday, the death toll has reached more than 700.

A Chilean woman cleans her home at the Yungay neighborhood in Santiago, Sunday, Feb. 28.

On Sunday, Chilean President Michelle Bachelet declared: "We are confronting an emergency without parallel in Chile's history."

A Chilean family rests on mattresses on a street at the Yungay neighborhood in Santiago, Sunday, Feb. 28.

According to a report by the

Associated Press

, Bachelet, who is scheduled to leave office March 11, said Chile is in need of field hospitals, temporary bridges, water purification plants and damage-assessment experts.

Firemen look for survivors on an earthquake-destroyed building in Concepcion, Chile, on Sunday, Feb. 28.

Ongoing aftershocks in the area have hindered the search for survivors.

Police patrol downtown Curico, Chile, Sunday, Feb. 28.

A dusk-to-dawn curfew has been imposed by President Michelle Bachelet in the provinces closest to the epicenter of the earthquake.

Police officers carry the body of an earthquake victim in Curanipe, Chile, some 241 miles southwest of Santiago Sunday, Feb. 28.

According to a report by the

Associated Press

, coastal towns just to the north of Concepcion were "almost obliterated, first shaken by the quake, then slammed by a tsunami that lifted whole houses and carried them inland and that reduced others to piles of sticks."

A flooded area in Pelluhue, Chile, about 200 miles southwest of Santiago, Sunday, Feb. 28.

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