Gabriel Zegarra stands Thursday over the remains of his sister's house following a deadly earthquake that hit late Wednesday in the town of Pisco, 125 miles southeast of the capital, Lima. The death toll rose to 510 today from the magnitude-8 earthquake.

PISCO, Peru — Rescuers searched intensely through the night into morning today, combing rubble for any survivors after a powerful earthquake devastated cities and sent a church's soaring ceiling tumbling down on hundreds of worshippers in southern Peru.

Officials said the death toll across the region hit by the magnitude-8 temblor topped 500.

In the gritty port city of Pisco, searchers at San Clemente church pulled at least 60 bodies out of the ruins and lined them up on the plaza. Doctors struggled to help more than 1,500 injured, including hundreds who waited on cots in the open air, fearing more aftershocks would send buildings crashing down.

Peru's fire department said the death toll from the magnitude-8 quake that devastated the southern coast had risen to 510, and rescuers were still digging through ruins of collapsed adobe homes in cities and hamlets.

Destruction from Wednesday's quake was centered in Peru's southern desert, near the oasis city of Ica and nearby Pisco, about 125 miles southeast of the capital of Lima.

Hundreds had gathered in the pews of the San Clemente church on Wednesday — the day Roman Catholics celebrate the Virgin Mary's rise into heaven — for a special Mass marking one month since the death of a Pisco man.

With minutes left in the Mass, the church's ceiling began to break apart. The shaking lasted for an agonizing two minutes, burying 200 people, according to the town's mayor. On Thursday, only two stone columns and the church's dome rose from a giant pile of stone, bricks, wood and dust.

Rescuers laid out the dust-covered dead beneath bloodstained sheets in the city's plaza. Civil defense workers then arrived and zipped them into body bags. But relatives searching desperately for the missing unzipped the bags, crying hysterically each time they recognized a familiar face.

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.

Scientists said the quake was a "megathrust" — a type of earthquake similar to the catastrophic Indian Ocean temblor in 2004 that generated deadly tsunami waves. "Megathrusts produce the largest earthquakes on the planet," USGS geophysicist Paul Earle said.

In general, magnitude 8 quakes are capable of causing tremendous damage.