Amid reports of hungry earthquake survivors ransacking markets and mobs fighting over food, Peru's leader called for calm on Friday.

"I understand your desperation, your anxiety," President Alan Garcia said. "There is not reason to fall into exaggerated desperation."

A Peruvian police rescue team prepares to board a flight bound for the earthquake-hit region at the airport in Callao, near Lima, on Thursday.
(Karel Navarro/Associated Press)

Garcia, who has declared three days of national mourning, later vowed, "Nobody is going to die of hunger or thirst."

Aid arrived in the disaster zone Friday, about 36 hours after the earthquake, and authorities were struggling to get supplies to the hardest-hit areas.

On Friday, aftershocks shook the country as rescuers continued to find bodies under the rubble from Wednesday night's magnitude-8 earthquake. Officials said the death toll from the quake that rocked Peru's coast near the capital of Lima had risen to 510.

The United States Geological Survey said a magnitude-5.9 aftershock — one of six aftershocks on Friday morning — hit south of Lima. There were no immediate reports of injuries.

Gabriel Zegarra stands over the ruins of his sister's house Wednesday.
(Dado Galdieri/Associated Press)

Rescue teams were still digging through ruins of collapsed adobe homes in cities and hamlets. But Health Minister Carlos Vallejos said finding survivors seemed increasingly unlikely.

"We keep losing hope of finding someone alive after 24 hours have passed" since the quake struck, Vallejos told the Associated Press.

The quake, which hit at 6:40 p.m. local time, was centred in Peru's southern desert, near the oasis city of Ica and nearby Pisco, about 200 kilometres southeast of the capital of Lima.

Many homes made of dried mud were destroyed. Hospitals and morgues have been overwhelmed by the number of dead and injured. 

'The dead are scattered by the dozens'

People put bodies out on city streets, which were then placed in body bags by civil defence workers.

People could be seen unzipping body bags, searching for loved ones believed to have been killed in the quake.

In the port city of Pisco, rescuers pulled more than 60 bodies from the ruins of a church and lined them up on the plaza.

"The dead are scattered by the dozens on the streets. We don't have lights, water, communications," Pisco Mayor Juan Mendoza told Lima radio station CPN. "Most houses have fallen. Churches, stores, hotels — everything is destroyed."

On Thursday, the centre upgraded the disaster from a magnitude of 7.9 to 8, and also indicated that at least 14 aftershocks of magnitude 5 or greater followed.

Ica, a city of 650,000 people, was hardest hit by the quake.

Traffic blocked by cracks in roads

Electricity, water and phone service were down in much of southern Peru. The government rushed police, soldiers and doctors to the area, but traffic was paralyzed by giant cracks and fallen power lines on the Panamerican Highway.

Canada responded to the crisis by pledging an immediate $2 million to help with the relief and recovery efforts. There were no reports of Canadian injuries.

In Toronto, the Peruvian consulate reported a flood of phone calls from expatriates trying to help their home country.

Pedro Rey, Peru's consul general in Toronto, said his office has started a bank account for donations to help those affected in Peru. The account at the Royal Bank branch at the intersection of Yonge and Bloor in Toronto is called Sismo Peru 2007.

The consulate is also putting together a list of items needed, including clothing, blankets and medicine.

With files from the Associated Press