February 28, 2010 -- Rescuers searched for survivors Sunday a day after one of the biggest earthquakes in recorded history rocked Chile, killing more than 700 people while leaving untold numbers missing and 2 million displaced, wounded or otherwise affected.

The death toll jumped Sunday to 708, Chilean President Michelle Bachelet said, nearly doubling as rescue crews reached remote and badly damaged towns.

The 8.8 quake, which hit before dawn Saturday, toppled buildings, buckled freeways and set off sirens thousands of miles away as governments scrambled to protect coastal residents from the ensuing tsunami. Authorities lifted tsunami warnings Sunday after smaller-than-feared waves washed shores from Southern California to Hawaii and Japan.

Looting broke out Sunday in some of the most heavily damaged areas of Chile, where residents were without water or electricity. Crowds overran supermarkets in the port city of Concepción, which sustained widespread damage, and were making off with food, water and diapers but also television sets. Several banks also were hit. Police in armored vehicles sprayed looters with water cannons and made several arrests, mostly of young men.

"The people are desperate and say the only way is to come get stuff for themselves," Concepción resident Patricio Martinez told reporters. "We have money to buy it, but the big stores are closed, so what are we supposed to do."

Bachelet said in an address to the nation Saturday night that a million buildings had been damaged. And with television stations showing topsy-turvy structures, severed bridges and highways whose pavement looked as if it had been tilled by some giant farm machine, the death toll was expected to rise.

Concepción resident Alberto Rozas said his building began to shake and he grabbed his daughter in terror amid shattering glass and an ungodly roar.

"It was awful," said Rozas, who lives next to a 15-story apartment building that was reduced to rubble. "The only thing I did right was throw clothes on the floor so my daughter and I could escape without ruining our feet. But we're still covered with cuts."

As a flurry of 30 aftershocks, some measuring greater than magnitude 6.0, continued to strike the region all day, Chile's Interior Ministry said tsunami surges reaching heights of 10 feet hit the nation's Juan Fernandez Islands, leaving three people dead and 13 missing.