A powerful 7.4 magnitude earthquake struck western Colombia on Monday, killing at least 132 people – according to the government’s death toll Tuesday – leaving many trapped under debris while their loved ones and rescuers searched through rubble.
Search teams and civilians picked through the remains of hundreds of destroyed buildings in the country’s third-largest city, Cali, passing large pieces of concrete and other rubble down a long line of volunteers.
“Our building has basically been left in ruins, and the building next to ours? Completely collapsed,” said Álvaro López, who cradled his dog as he watched the search. The desperate scene recalled the searches still ongoing in neighbouring Venezuela weeks after that country was devastated by two powerful earthquakes.
Besides Cali, the quake ravaged cities across western Colombia, including Pereira, Quibdo and Manizales, and was felt in neighbouring Ecuador and Panama. The epicentre was in San Jose del Palmar, a community of about 4,800 people in the Choco region about 250 miles (400km) west of Bogota, the United States Geological Survey said.
Colombia’s President Abelardo de la Espriella declared an emergency to expedite funding for the quake recovery. “We aren’t going to leave people alone. They are in our hearts, and we are going to tend to people with our full determination,” he said.
Most powerful quake recorded in Colombia this century
Colombia’s Geological Service said Monday’s quake was the country’s strongest recorded “in the 21st century”, and that it was followed by several aftershocks.
Colombia’s Pacific region around the epicentre lies along the “Ring of Fire”, the line of seismic faults encircling the Pacific Ocean where most of the world’s earthquakes occur.
The Pacific, particularly the Choco region, is one of Colombia’s poorest, nestled in dense jungle. Much of Choco is only reachable by boat or plane, which may make it difficult to assess the wider toll.
Local authorities had said Monday the death toll included at least 40 people who were killed in the Risaralda region, where Pereira is located, and 27 people in the Valle del Cauca region, where Cali is located, including three children.
Authorities also confirmed nine people killed in Choco, two in the Caldas region and a 73-year-old in the Antioquia region.
The earthquakes left many in the Andean nation unnerved after two back-to-back quakes devastated neighbouring Venezuela in late June, destroying hundreds of buildings and killing more than 6,300 people.
By Monday afternoon, people had begun reporting their loved ones missing on digital databases just as civilians did following Venezuela’s earthquakes. One database had more than 2,000 people, mostly in Cali and Pereira, with the number steadily climbing.
Photos of the missing included a young mother and her baby in Pereira; another showed an 80-year-old woman in Cali whose family was desperately looking for details after her building collapsed.
Cities left devastated
Jorge Moncayo, a 64-year-old taxi driver in Cali, said he saw plumes of dust shoot up across the city as buildings collapsed. “My entire house shook. I’ve never lived through such a powerful earthquake,” he said. “We’re thanking God we’re alive.”
Little was known about the extent of the damage in Choco, a remote region where officials reported dozens of injured people and damaged buildings but few other details.
Phone signals were out in many parts of the region’s capital, Quibdo. The town closest to the earthquake’s epicentre, San Jose del Palmar, has no airport and sits on a mountain ridge along a highway linking the cities of Cali and Pereira.
In Pereira, further south in the coffee-producing mountains of Colombia, photos and videos on local media showed pieces of the airport ceiling falling onto travellers taking shelter and screaming. People ran through rubble and plumes of dust, and residents said collapsed stores, residential buildings and homes lined the city.
In nearby Manizales, one of the towers of the neo-Gothic cathedral collapsed and fell on the nave. Mayor Jorge Eduardo Rojas asked residents to stay outside in case of aftershocks. Authorities said flights were suspended at the airports in Manizales, Quibdo, Armenia, Cartago, Buenaventura and Pereira as they assessed damage.
Offers of aid pour in from across the Americas
Small earthquakes, known as “temblores”, are common in central and western Colombia, but those above 6.0 magnitude are rare. In 1999, a 6.2 magnitude quake near the city of Armenia killed more than 1,100 people.
Response to the earthquake presents the first major challenge for de la Espriella, a Trump ally who was sworn in as president over the weekend. A divisive figure because of his pledge of an all-out crackdown on criminal groups, de la Espriella said he had personally taken charge of the government’s response to the emergency.
On Monday night, the US State Department announced it would provide US$15.5 million (HK$121.61 million) for emergency shelter, food and other earthquake response aid. Governments across Latin America also lined up to help.
El Salvador’s President Nayib Bukele and Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum – whose countries were among the largest providers of aid to Venezuela following its recent crisis – said they were ready to assist Colombia.
Chilean President José Antonio Kast said Chile, one of the region’s most earthquake-prone countries, “knows the pain and the challenge left by earthquakes” and also pledged help.
