.gif)
A new tsunami alert was briefly sounded along part of the quake-hit Chilean coast Wednesday just four days after monster waves ravaged towns and villages, witnesses said.
Hundreds of people were seen rushing out of Constitucion and Concepcion to higher ground as troops waved them up the hillsides amid scenes of panic with sirens wailing across the devastated cities.
The tsunami warnings, which was lifted by officials shortly afterwards, came after two powerful aftershocks struck the region measuring 5.9 and 6.O on the moment magnitude scale.
Ignacio Gutierrez, from a Chilean television station, was driving down into Constitucion, when people stopped the car on the road and shouted: "Run, run there is a tsunami."
Nelson Muna had just arrived in Constitucion from a country town bringing food and water for victims of Saturday's tsumani when he heard the sirens and people shouting, "Quickly, quickly, run."
"'We saw soldiers running, everyone running out of town. Even the soldiers were scared," he said.
In Constitucion, people fled their homes in panic and hundreds of cars were still clogging the roads out of town even after the alert was lifted.
The Chilean government on Wednesday raised the death toll to 799, most of whom were killed when Saturday's tsunami swamped coastal regions south of the capital Santiago following the 8.8-magnitude quake.
The Pacific Tsunami Warning Center, which had tracked Saturday's waves as they raced thousands of kilometers (miles) across the Pacific Ocean to reach Japan, did not issue any immediate warnings about Wednesday's alert.
