A 7.4-magnitude earthquake tore through western Colombia early Monday, killing at least 111 people and collapsing structures across multiple cities in one of the country’s deadliest natural disasters in decades.
The United States Geological Survey reported the quake struck at a depth of 107 km (66 miles) near San Jose del Palmar in Choco, a sparsely populated province on Colombia’s Pacific Coast, but was felt in major cities nationwide, roughly 400 km west of Bogota.
Colombia’s own geological service initially measured the quake at a lower 6.6 magnitude before it was revised upward. The USGS warned that “significant casualties and damage are likely and the disaster is potentially widespread.”
The disaster hit Colombia’s coffee-growing region hardest. The highest reported death toll was in the western province of Risaralda, where Governor Juan Diego Patino reported 42 fatalities, according to local television.
In Pereira, the province’s capital, social media images showed a building with a cracked facade crashing to the ground, sending up a dark cloud of dust as onlookers fled.
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The quake also toppled one of the towers atop a Gothic-style cathedral in Manizales and forced nurses in Cali to wheel patients outside in hospital beds, according to television and social media footage.
Manizales Mayor Jorge Eduardo Rojas said three people were killed there, while one person died in Buenaventura, Colombia’s main Pacific port, when a collapsing building trapped several people, according to Mayor Ligia del Carmen Cordoba.
Cali, one of Colombia’s largest cities, was especially hard-hit. Mayor Alejandro Eder said people remained trapped after more than two dozen structures collapsed, and the city had requested disaster teams from Bogota and Medellin.
“At this point, two people have already been rescued alive, one elderly woman and one young girl. There are more people trapped,” Eder told Blu Radio, adding the city had at least 12 critical points and 25 collapsed structures.
In Choco itself, near the epicenter, Governor Nubia Cordoba said there were injuries and significant damage to buildings in the provincial capital, Quibdo, and that officials were carrying out a damage assessment, while warning residents to stay alert for aftershocks.
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Tremors also prompted building evacuations in Bogota and were felt across the border in Ecuador, though no tsunami warning was issued.
The earthquake struck just days after Abelardo De La Espriella was sworn in as president, thrusting his administration into its first major crisis, with the government declaring a state of emergency.
It also comes with the region still reeling from catastrophe next door: the quake follows two powerful earthquakes that struck Venezuela in late June, killing more than 6,000 people and destroying hundreds of buildings.
While smaller earthquakes are not uncommon in Colombia, which is crisscrossed by three ranges of the Andes, landslides have historically been the country’s deadliest natural disasters; the 1985 Armero disaster killed some 25,000 people.
