- The 7.4 magnitude earthquake on Monday was the strongest to hit Colombia in over the past decade, according to the director of the country’s geological service.
- The epicenter was located in Chocó, an underdeveloped area of western Colombia, about 150 miles west of Bogotá. The tremor was felt strongly in the nation’s capital, with alarms sounding and people evacuating to the streets.
- Rescue workers searched through the night for survivors, with images from Pereira and Cali showing workers using torches to look for survivors in the rubble of collapsed buildings. In Cali, firefighters had recovered two men and one woman from a collapsed building, where two children were still trapped.
- In Cali, the city’s mayor Alejandro Eder said 188 people were missing in the city, while 37 had been rescued. The Cali Fire Department Sergeant Pedro Ramirez said, “Several parts of the city have been affected, with structural damage.”
- In Pereira, sixteen people were rescued after being trapped for roughly six hours, according to the city’s mayor’s office.
- The US is providing aid to Colombia for shelter, food, protection and earthquake assessments, and is also helping American tourists, according to the State Department and the embassy in Bogota.
- Officials report at least 132 dead, making it the strongest recorded earthquake in Colombia in the last decade.
At least 132 people have died and 570 have been injured following a devastating 7.4-magnitude earthquake that struck western Colombia, marking the strongest seismic event in the country in over a decade. The quake's epicenter was located in Chocó, an area where more than two-thirds of the population live in poverty.34
Rescue operations are underway in the cities of Pereira and Cali, where 60 deaths have been reported in Pereira alone. Images show rescue workers and volunteers searching through rubble with torches, desperately looking for survivors. “Several parts of the city have been affected, with structural damage,” said Cali Fire Department Sergeant Pedro Ramirez, emphasizing the urgency of the situation.5678910
In Cali, 188 people are reported missing, with 37 having been rescued. The mayor's office confirmed that sixteen individuals were trapped for roughly six hours in Pereira before being rescued. The U.S. State Department has offered assistance for shelter, food, and earthquake assessments in the wake of this disaster.
This earthquake occurred just over a month after two quakes in neighboring Venezuela killed more than 6,300 people. However, experts note that the two events differ significantly in their geological characteristics, with the Colombian quake occurring at a depth of over 100 kilometers (about 62 miles).
“The epicenter was in Chocó, an underdeveloped area about 150 miles west of Bogotá, where more than two-thirds live in poverty. In Cali, Mayor Alejandro Eder reported 188 missing and 37 rescued, while firefighters recovered two men and one woman with two children still trapped.”
