The 7.6 magnitude quake was centered off the coast of El Salvador, about 65 miles southwest of San Miguel, according to the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS)in Denver, Colorado.
A tsunami warning was issued for Mexico, Nicaragua and El Salvador, the USGS said.
The Associated Press reported that a hillside in San Salvador collapse in the earthquake, burying scores of homes.
The death toll was uncertain, but reporters saw at least 10 bodies, apparently dead, pulled from
the debris in the middle class Las Colinas neighborhood west of the capital.
Hundreds of rescuers frantically scrambled over the scene ripping at the earth with sticks and bare hands to reach those
still buried.
"I felt an earthquake and all the hill came down and covered
the houses," said Candido Salinas, 60, who lives across the street
from the slide zone, which was shaken by a powerful quake at about
11:35 a.m. (1735 GMT.)
Elsewhere in El Salvador and Guatemala, churches collapsed,
electricity failed and walls cracked and roads were blocked by
landslides.
Guatemala hit hard
In Guatemala, at least two people were reported killed and four injured. The Red Cross reported at least 10 people injured in San Salvador, the capital of El Salvador. There, landslides blocked roads, preventing officials from reaching some rural areas.
Almost an hour after the quake, only one radio station in San Salvador had managed to return to the air. The station reported cracked buildings and shattered windows across the city of 500,000.
Police in Guatemala said a man and a 2-year-old girl were killed and three other people were injured when a pair of homes collapsed in the city of Jalpataua.
A Guatemala City radio station reported that falling building debris killed a child in the city of Jutiapa, on Guatemala's border with El Salvador.
A construction worker was injured as he fell from a building in Guatemala City, according to the fire department.
Officials at San Salvador's international airport said all operations had been halted and damaged buildings there were evacuated.
Most businesses in the city also were closed -- though in a surreal touch, acrobats and dancers from a touring circus marched through the streets past frightened people, using a loudspeaker to promote a coming performance.
Landslides in El Salvador
Salvadoran Red Cross spokesman Carlos Lopez Mendoza said some roads were blocked on the edge of the capital, and there were reports of a bus buried by a landslide in Tecolouca, east of San Salvador.
He said there were reports that a centuries-old church had collapsed in Santa Ana, about 35 miles northwest of the capital.
Panicked residents raced from homes and offices in El Salvador and in neighboring Guatemala.
Local radios reported the collapse of a church in Suchitepequez, in southern Guatemala.
The quake set off car alarms and temporarily knocked out electricity, radio, television and cellular phone service all over Guatemala, but most service was quickly restored.
Honduran officials reported cracked buildings in several cities, but there were no reports of injuries.
The USGS said it could not confirm reports of more than one seismic occurrence, but was investigating.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
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