At least 48 people died
in the temblor, President Otto Perez Molina said in a Twitter post
Wednesday night, and doctors treated at least 150 others for injuries.
Earlier Wednesday, Guatemala's disaster relief agency said 29 people were missing and hundreds had lost their homes.
Residents felt the
7.4-magnitude quake throughout Central America and as far north as
Mexico City. Its epicenter was about 15 miles off the western coastal
town of Champerico, at a depth of 26 miles.
Guatemala rocked by powerful quake
A 7.4-magnitude earthquake hit Wednesday off the coast of Guatemala, near its border with Mexico.
It was the strongest
quake to hit Guatemala since 1976, the president told reporters, when a
7.5-magnitude quake killed 23,000 people.
"Fortunately, the damage that we have is not at the same level," Perez Molina said Wednesday.
Roads collapsed in multiple locations around the Pacific coastal region of Guatemala, Perez Molina said.
Photos on the Facebook
page of the nation's disaster relief agency showed rubble crushing cars
and damage to the ceiling at a school in the department of San Marcos.
There were reports of
homes and schools destroyed in western Guatemala, Perez Molina told CNN
en Español. Many people fled buildings when the tremor first hit.
Some 60,000 people remained without power in the country because of the quake, the state-run AGN news agency reported.
It was fortunate that
the school year in Guatemala had recently come to end, so that no
children were inside the school buildings that were damaged, Perez
Molina said.
In Guatemala City, 140
miles away from the quake's epicenter, the quake made the desk and
printer sway side to side in Fernando McDonald's home office.
McDonald, who shared a video of the quake with CNN's iReport, described the quake as "strong and long."
Fearing powerful
aftershocks, the government issued a "red alert" that warns people to
take precautions, such as evacuating tall buildings. The alert stretches
along the country's entire Pacific coast.
Guatemala Earthquake 2012: Temblor Death Toll Rises To 52 (VIDEO)
By SONIA PEREZ D. and MICHAEL WEISSENSTEIN
11/08/12 07:25 PM ET EST 
Yellow taped is draped in front of a home damaged in a
magnitude 7.4 earthquake that struck in San Marcos, Guatemala, on Nov.
7, 2012. (AP Photo/Moises Castillo)
As Guatemala tried to recover Thursday from a 7.4-magnitude quake, the country mourned a disaster that killed at least 52 people; left thousands of others without homes, electricity or water; and emotionally devastated one small town by wiping out almost an entire family seeing the first signs of success in a tireless effort to claw itself out of poverty.
Neighbors filed past 10 wooden caskets lined up in two rows in the Vasquez living room, remembering a family reduced to a single survivor, the eldest son about to graduate with an accounting degree.
Justo Vasquez, a man known for his ferocious work ethic and dedication to his seven children, was with nearly all his closest relations Wednesday at a local quarry hacking out a white rock that is pulverized to make cinder blocks for construction.
When the quake struck, thousands of pounds of earth calved off from the wall above the pit, burying the 44-year-old and almost everyone he loved: his wife, Ofelia Gomez, 43; their daughters Daisy, 14, Gisely, 8, and Merly, 6; and their sons Aldiner, 12, Delbis, 5, and Dibel, 3. Their nephews Ulises and Aldo Vasquez, both 12, also died.
Only the oldest son, Ivan, 19, survived. He had stayed in the house when the rest of his family went to the quarry, taking care of some last-minute details to receive his accounting degree – the first in his family to have a professional career. His father had been saving for a party to celebrate his Nov. 23 graduation.
"He died working," said Antonia Lopez, a sister-in-law of the father, Justo Vasquez. "He was fighting for his kids."
Dozens of villagers in the humble town of San Cristobal Cucho ran to dig the family after Guatemala's biggest quake in 36 years. When they uncovered some of the children, one body still warm, two with pulses, they were in the arms of their father, who had tried to shield them.
"We have never seen a tragedy like this. The whole town is sad," said brother Romulo Vasquez, whose 12-year old son, Ulises, also died at the quarry.
Perez said powerful 7.4-magnitude quake, felt as far as Mexico City 600 miles away, affected as many as 1.2 million Guatemalans. A little more than 700 people were in shelters, with most opting to stay with family or friends, he added.
There were 70 aftershocks in the first 24 hours after the quake, some as strong as magnitude 5.1, Perez said. Damaged homes are among the biggest problems the country will face in the coming days.
Life was returning to normal in the quake-stricken area Thursday afternoon – electricity and mobile phone service had returned to many neighborhoods, cafes and banks reopened and several main thoroughfares filled with their weekly street markets.
But life remained stopped in the Vasquezes' home in San Cristobal Cucho, a town of some 15,000 people so high in the mountains that clouds swirl through the streets.
The streets were packed around the Vasquezes' small yellow-and-red, cinderblock-and-adobe house. Inside, neighbors gathered around the 10 wooden caskets with open lids, pressing against each other to see the faces of the dead and pay their last respects. Wood smoke bathed the memorial as more than a dozen women in the back of the house cooked rice, beans, corn and eggs to feed the crowd.
The Vasquezes were the only ones to die in San Cristobal Cucho. Like the rest of several thousand people in town, the Vasquez family was humble, the parents without much education. Most of the people in the town are subsistence farmers or sell things on the streets and in the markets.
The oldest son, Ivan, was too distraught to speak or even stay at the house among the mourners.
"He was a very good father, he was a very good neighbor," said Antonia Lopez, who was among the many paying respects.
Guatemalans fearing aftershocks huddled in the streets of the nearby city San Marcos, the most affected area. Others crowded inside its hospital, the only building in town left with electricity.
More than 90 rescue workers continued to dig with backhoes at a half-ton mound of sand at a second quarry that buried seven people.
"We started rescue work very early," said Julio Cesar Fuentes of the municipal fire department. "The objective is our hope to find people who were buried."
But they uncovered only more dead. One man was called to the quarry to identify his dead father. When he climbed into the sand pit and recognized the clothing, the son collapsed onto the shoulders of firefighters, crying: "Papa, Papa, Papa."
He and his father were not identified to the news media because other relatives had not been notified of the death.
Volunteers carrying boxes of medical supplies began arriving in the area in western Guatemala late Wednesday.
The quake, which was 20 miles deep, was centered 15 miles off the coastal town of Champerico and 100 miles southwest of Guatemala City. It was the strongest earthquake to hit Guatemala since a 1976 temblor that killed 23,000.
Perez said more than 2,000 soldiers were deployed to help with the disaster. A plane had made at least two trips to carry relief teams to the area. The U.S. State Department said it was sending some $50,000 in immediate disaster relief, including clean water, fuel and blankets. It also said it had offered U.S. helicopters if needed.
