A powerful 7.4 magnitude earthquake struck western Colombia on Monday, killing at least 111 people, damaging hundreds of buildings and leaving many trapped under debris while their loved ones and rescue workers searched through rubble.
Colombian President Abelardo de la Espriella said at least 87 people were injured and declared an emergency to expedite funding for the quake recovery while saying he would visit the disaster zone.
“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.
The epicentre was in San Jose Del Palmar, a community of about 4,800 people in the Choco region about 250 miles west of Bogota, the US Geological Survey (USGS) said.
The quake also was felt in neighbouring Ecuador and Panama, though minimal damage was reported there.
The quake ravaged cities across the west of the country, including Pereira, Quibdo, Cali and Manizales.
Residents and search teams picked through the rubble of collapsed buildings amid concerns over aftershocks. Colombia’s interior minister said more than 20 municipalities across the country had been hit.
Colombia’s Pacific region around the quake’s 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 the poorest regions in the country. Nestled in the dense jungle, much of Choco is highly rural and only reachable by boat or plane, which may pose a problem for authorities in assessing the wider toll.
Jorge Moncayo, a 64-year-old taxi driver in Cali, said he saw plumes of dust shoot up across the city as buildings collapsed. Residents and rescue workers were searching the rubble for survivors.
“My entire house shook. I’ve never lived through such a powerful earthquake,” he said. “We’re thanking God we’re alive.”
Before the president gave the latest death toll of at least 111 people, local officials had confirmed that at least 40 people were killed in the Risaralda region, where the hard-hit city of Pereira is located, and 27 people in the Valle del Cauca region, where Colombia’s third-biggest city, Cali, is located.
At least three of those killed in Valle del Cauca were children, the governor said.
Authorities also confirmed nine people were killed in Choco, two more in the Caldas region and a 73-year-old in the Antioquia region.
Colombia’s Geological Service said on Monday that it had been “the highest magnitude earthquake registered in Colombia in the last decade” and that it had been followed by two 2.8 and 4.8 magnitude aftershocks.
Authorities also reported that flights were suspended in the airports of Manizales, Quibdo, Armenia, Cartago, Buenaventura and Pereira.
The earthquakes left many in the Andean nation unnerved after two back-to-back quakes devastated neighbouring Venezuela in late June, destroyed hundreds of buildings and killed more than 5,000 people.
At the same time the quake brought down buildings in Colombia, desperate families in Venezuela continued to search the ruins for the bodies of their loved ones.
In Pereira, photos and videos published by local media showed pieces of the airport ceiling falling down on travellers taking shelter and screaming, and people running through rubble in a panic.
Pereira’s mayor, Mauricio Salazar, told a local radio station that at least 18 people had died and that many more were trapped under “a massive quantity of collapsed buildings”.
In nearby Manizales, a city in the coffee-producing mountains of Colombia, one of the towers of the neo-Gothic cathedral collapsed and fell on the nave. Jorge Eduardo Rojas, the mayor of Manizales, asked residents to stay outside in case of aftershocks.
Authorities in the rural state of Choco, the epicentre of the quake, reported injured people and damaged buildings in the capital, but provided few details.
In Cali, a city of two million people, mayor Alejandro Eder said that residents were trapped in at least 19 buildings that had collapsed.
Small earthquakes 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.
Messages of support rolled in from leaders across the Americas, including Mexico, Brazil, Ecuador, El Salvador and the United States.
“The Trump administration is closely monitoring the large earthquake that struck Colombia and stands ready to support the people of Colombia,” US secretary of state Marco Rubio wrote in a post on X.
A number of countries offered aid, and the UN deputy spokesman, Farhan Haq, said: “We stand ready to help as needed.”
