A police officer guards a street Tuesday in Talcahuano, Chile. Much of the country's economy is in ruins after the 8.8-magnitude earthquake struck Saturday.

TALCAHUANO, Chile — The tsunami that hit this coastal city sent 50-ton fishing boats crashing onto land and demolished its port — wiping out the $40 million in business that courses through the local economy from the annual anchovy and sardine catch.

Less than 100 miles away, Chile's economy took another beating as the mammoth quake downed bridges and opened up vast crevices on the nation's only north-south highway, paralyzing the export lifeline for the nation's renowned farm-raised salmon industry.

And Chile's telecommunications system was still so badly out of whack Tuesday — four days after the quake — that local and foreign investors who own vineyards that carpet the hardest-hit areas couldn't reach winery employees by phone or Internet to discuss the upcoming harvest.

Chile's horrendously destructive 8.8-magnitude quake doesn't have a price tag on it yet, though President Michelle Bachelet mentioned a $30 billion estimate when she met Tuesday with U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, who delivered 25 satellite phones as a down payment on disaster assistance.

But the quake has already forced tens of thousands into unemployment with no end in sight in the nation's south-southwest area and will almost certainly mean higher salmon prices at U.S. supermarkets. It also translates into higher wine production costs for an industry already hurt by the declining value of the U.S. dollar.

Chile's copper industry, which supplies one-third of the world's copper, wasn't badly affected because it lies north of Santiago.

Similarly, the large ships that fish Chile's rich waters far out to sea rode out the tsunami and can deliver their catches to ports unaffected by the earthquake.

But an estimated 1,000 boats that stick closer to shore were destroyed, said Gonzalo Olea, a spokesman for Chile's National Confederation of Small Fishermen. Some boats ended up miles inland.

The quake hit just as the three- to four-month fishing season was starting for 760 small-scale fishermen in Talcahuano, said Nelson Estrada, president of their union representing fishermen.

The region where they ply the waters nets 4 percent of the world's annual catch of seafood, some 2 million metric tons, said Hector Bacigalupo, general manager of Chile's National Fishing Association. At least 90 percent goes to the United States, Australia and Africa.

The airport hasn't reopened to commercial flights, and no one knows how long it will take to repair all the damaged bridges and highway pavement on Chile's highway.

Some of Chile's oldest and most famous wine-growing regions lie in the heart of area slammed by the earthquake, but Chilean wine promoters are confident the industry will recover.