By SIMON ROMERO
The New York Times

A day after a powerful earthquake devastated cities along Peru’s southern coast, government officials put the death toll at 437, with at least 17,000 people displaced and with wide areas without power, telephone service or road access on Thursday night.

At least 300 of the dead were in Pisco, a port city about 125 miles south of Lima, and more were thought to be buried in rubble, local officials said. Dozens were inside the San Clemente cathedral, which was full for Mass when the quake caused it to cave in around 6:40 p.m. on Wednesday. Witnesses said the spire bell clanged horribly in the seconds before it tumbled down.

“I am a real man, but last night I was scared,” said Luis Chavez, 31, who was in the main square when the cathedral collapsed. “There was so much dust that all I could think of was the World Trade Center pictures.”

The mayor of Pisco, Juan Mendoza Uribe, said the quake had destroyed as much as 70 percent of the city. “So much effort and our city is destroyed,” he said, crying audibly, in comments broadcast on the radio station RPP in Lima.

Power and water service were still out in Pisco on Thursday night, and many residents said they would sleep outside again, afraid that aftershocks could topple more structures. In the city center, the wreckage of dozens of old adobe homes lay in the streets. Rescuers, working well into the night, were often forced to walk far out of their way as they carried bodies, sometimes in shouldered coffins, toward a makeshift morgue at the hospital.

In nearby Chincha Alta, a wall collapsed at the Tambo de Mora prison, and about 680 prisoners escaped, according to Manuel Aguilar, vice president of the National Institute of Penitentiaries. About 29 were recaptured and sent to another jail, he said. An Associated Press Television News cameraman in Chincha Alta reported seeing at least 30 bodies laid out on a hospital balcony.