A fisherman tries to salvage his boat in the aftermath of an earthquake and tsunami that hit the northern port of Iquique, April 2, 2014. [Photo/Agencies]

It was too early to estimate financial losses, but they were expected to be much lower than the $30 billion from the 2010 quake, which affected the more densely populated central region, said earthquake expert Alexander Allmann at reinsurer Munich Re.

"The quake has caused severe damage to some buildings in the affected region, but in general the building standards in Chile are comparatively high, allowing buildings and infrastructure to withstand such quakes reasonably well," said Allmann.

"The small tsunami triggered by the quake is not expected to have caused significant damage."

Small fishing vessels in the ports appeared to be among the worst affected.

"We struggled just to be able to get a bigger boat... and now look at it," a woman from Iquique's fishing community, in tears, said in a video posted on Reuters.com.

Several smaller aftershocks, some as big as 5.2 magnitude, continued into Wednesday and some ports in the area remained closed.

Landslides also blocked eight roads and Iquique's hospital suffered some damage but otherwise most infrastructure was in good shape, emergency office Onemi said.

Nearly 300 prisoners took advantage of the emergency on Tuesday night to escape from a female penitentiary in Iquique. About 130 had since voluntarily returned, Onemi said.

The global price for copper initially jumped on news of the quake, but market reaction was otherwise muted, with Chile's IPSA stock market closing up 0.4 percent on Wednesday. Shares in local cement makers Melon and Cementos Bio-Bio rose on expectations of higher demand.

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