These few short words sent via text message summed up the confusion and fear Melton mother Rocio Arenas and her five children faced when they were caught up in the devastation of the massive earthquake that hit Chile late last month.

Rocio and her five children - Natalia, Talyshar, Alison, Kurtis and six-month-old Sophia - had been on holiday in Chile visiting Rocio's mother Rosa in the town of Molina, about 200kilometres south of Santiago, the capital.

Chile was rocked by an 8.8-magnitude earthquake in the early hours of Saturday, February 27

Last week, it was reported that 795 people had been killed in the quake. More than two-million were homeless, and many more were missing following the 12-metre-high tsunami that followed the quake.

The Arenas family had been on holiday in the seaside town of Constitucion a day or so before the quake.

The quake's epicentre was off the coast of the Maule administrative region and to the east of Moline.

Rocio said she was woken early by the violent shaking. She grabbed her baby and tried to wake her daughter, urging the family to get out of the house as walls began to crack and plaster from the colonial-era home fell.

Outside was a scene of devastation and panic.

"People were crying and hugging each other," Rocio said.

A roof had collapsed where the children had been partying the night before. A neighbour was dead, crushed under rubble. Rocio's mother's house was all but destroyed and the family spent the next three nights camping in makeshift tents.

There were aftershocks every few minutes, causing people to flee to safer ground. That's when an exhausted Rocio texted her husband the message.

Husband Cristian, who had stayed in Melton to work, said his cousin phoned him to tell there had been an earthquake.

He didn't believe it at first, but his heart sank when after hours of trying he couldn't get through to his parents in Santiago or his wife's mobile phone.