At least 132 people have been killed after a powerful earthquake struck western Colombia, collapsing buildings, damaging hospitals and infrastructure and trapping people beneath rubble. The 7.4-magnitude earthquake struck at about 07:34 local time on Monday at a depth of 107 km, according to the US Geological Survey.
Colombia’s Geological Service said it was the strongest earthquake recorded in the country in the 21st Century.
President Abelardo De La Espriella, who was sworn in just days ago, declared a national state of emergency as rescue teams searched for survivors. “The national government has all of its capabilities deployed to protect lives, assist affected communities and deliver aid wherever it is needed,” he said in a national address. “The first priority is rescuing the people trapped under the rubble.”
De La Espriella said preliminary reports indicated 111 people had died and 87 were injured, with dozens of buildings collapsed and homes damaged.
JUST IN: Death toll from the powerful 7.4M earthquake in Colombia rises to 82, according to authorities. pic.twitter.com/uoB7m71sPt
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Buildings Collapse Across Colombia
The worst casualties appeared to be concentrated in Risaralda, part of Colombia’s coffee-growing region. Pereira, the department’s capital, suffered extensive damage, with rescue workers searching collapsed buildings for survivors.
In nearby Manizales, footage showed one of the side towers of the city’s landmark neo-Gothic cathedral breaking apart and sending debris onto the streets.
Rescue workers, police officers and volunteers were seen clearing rubble by hand and loading debris into trucks as they searched for people trapped underneath.
Other footage showed damage to residential buildings and emergency facilities, with debris falling onto ambulances parked below.
Mauricio Andrade, a firefighter in Cali, said his team had rescued two women and two children from a collapsed building.
“They are alive,” he told Reuters. “We are making space so we can free them and get them out.”
Juan Carlos Osorio, who was helping clear debris from a collapsed building in Cali, said the collapse “sounded like a bomb”. “All of us neighbors are working together, forming human chains. We need heavy equipment. There are many people trapped,” he told Caracol Television.
Hospitals and Airports Affected
The earthquake caused damage across several cities, while communications outages made it difficult to assess the full impact in areas close to the epicentre.
In Choco, authorities reported 12 deaths and 84 injuries.
Governor Nubia Carolina Cordoba said communications remained disrupted in some areas hours after the earthquake, with some communities still without mobile phone service.
Colombia’s civil aviation authority suspended operations at airports in Pereira, Manizales, Quibdo, Armenia, Cartago and Buenaventura while engineers carried out structural inspections.
The Colombian Geological Service said 21 aftershocks had been recorded by late Monday and warned that more tremors were possible.
A Second Disaster for Two Brothers
For two Venezuelan teenagers, the earthquake brought back memories of another devastating disaster just weeks earlier.
Winder and Deivi Delfín, aged 15 and 17, survived the twin earthquakes that struck Venezuela in June and killed thousands of people, including their mother, younger brother and grandmother. Their 26-day search for their relatives’ bodies was documented by The New York Times last month.
The brothers subsequently moved to Cali, where their father, Deivid Delfín, 44, lives and works as a barber.
On Monday morning, they were once again caught in a major earthquake. Their home began shaking at about 07:34.
The boys ran outside in panic, their father said. He was away from home at the time and rushed back.
At first, he could not find them. “When I finally did, I started crying and everything, because I was scared of what I had experienced and what my boys had experienced,” he told The New York Times. “I don’t want anything to happen to my children.”
Delfín had hoped moving his sons to Colombia would give them a fresh start away from the disasters they had experienced in Venezuela.
On Monday afternoon, the family remained outside their home because they were afraid to go back inside. “Right now we’re outside the house, just sitting here,” Delfín said. “But we’re OK. We’re here, alive.”
Why Was the Earthquake So Destructive?
Colombia lies along the seismically active Pacific Ring of Fire and experiences thousands of mostly minor earthquakes every month. Northwestern University seismologist Suzan van der Lee said the earthquake’s large magnitude, inland location and strike-slip movement may have contributed to the severe shaking in populated valleys. “This one was far below the crust, and in theory it shouldn’t cause as much shaking,” she said. “At this magnitude, it did actually cause a lot of shaking.”
The country’s coffee-growing region was devastated by a magnitude 6.2 earthquake in 1999, which killed more than 1,000 people, particularly around Armenia and Pereira.