Rescue crews in western Colombia are digging through mountains of rubble in a desperate search for survivors after the country’s strongest earthquake this century killed at least 254 people.
The 7.4-magnitude earthquake struck Colombia’s coffee-growing heartland early Monday, destroying or severely damaging apartment blocks, homes, schools and health centres.
Separate reports from affected cities on Tuesday put the death toll at 254, including 101 people killed in Pereira and 95 in Cali, Colombia’s third-largest city.
Rescuers worked through the night and into Tuesday using cranes, excavators and their bare hands. At several sites, rescue teams called for silence so they could listen for people trapped beneath collapsed structures.
They also formed human chains to remove debris and pass buckets filled with rubble as they searched for survivors.
Thousands of people have been left homeless, with many families forced to spend the night outdoors while authorities assess whether their homes remain safe.
In Pereira, Rosa Gonzalez said she escaped a guest house she ran with her husband and 10-month-old baby after the building began to shake.
“The structure started creaking and just as we ran outside the building collapsed,” she told Reuters.
Eight people escaped the building alive, but Gonzalez said an elderly man remained trapped on a terrace and feared he could be among those killed. Her cat was rescued from the rubble overnight.
Social media influencer Jose Gallego was at Pereira airport when the earthquake struck. He was recording a live video when the violent shaking began, forcing him to crouch beneath a table as parts of the ceiling fell.
“There were people injured, bleeding, screaming and trying to reach their families,” he said.
Gallego said he was unable to sleep and stayed in open spaces because of fears of aftershocks. More than 100 aftershocks had been recorded by Tuesday afternoon.
“I crossed the city on foot; it took two hours and the scenes were devastating,” he said. “It was like a nightmare come to life.”
In Cali, rescue workers, volunteers and local officials gathered around the destroyed Torres del Limonar apartment complex, where crowds cheered after rescuers pulled a woman alive from the rubble.
She was placed on a stretcher and taken away from the scene as rescue operations continued.
However, the scale of the devastation overwhelmed local authorities. Cali’s public health secretary, German Escobar, said the city’s morgue was full and authorities were bringing in more bodies from the streets.
Residents in some neighbourhoods cooked outdoors and salvaged belongings from damaged buildings.
Cali Mayor Alejandro Eder imposed an overnight curfew, along with officials in other affected areas, to prevent looting. Footage circulating on social media showed residents shouting at him during a visit to a badly damaged neighbourhood.
Alberto Machado, 34, said the earthquake destroyed his home in Cali shortly after he dropped his son at school.
His wife, mother-in-law and two young children spent the night at a neighbour’s home, uncertain about what they would do next.
A sports centre was also prepared to accommodate about 60 people overnight, including 30 elderly residents evacuated from a damaged nursing home.
Animal shelters in the affected cities appealed for food, medicine and volunteers as they struggled to care for displaced dogs and cats.
The situation was particularly difficult in Indigenous communities in Choco, the forested Pacific-facing region close to the earthquake’s epicentre.
Several communities remained without electricity, water, medical supplies and reliable communications, while damaged roads further complicated rescue and relief operations.
Andres Caicedo, a community leader in Sipi, told Caracol TV that residents were struggling to obtain basic assistance in an area already affected by attacks from armed groups.
“We’re going up trees for scraps of internet connection,” Caicedo said.
“We have children and older people who still haven’t gotten over the shock … We don’t have a health centre or medical supplies, we’ve done what we can with our own hands.”
Three airports remained closed on Tuesday afternoon, while several major highways were also inaccessible.
Many affected communities continued to lack gas, water and electricity.
The National Coffee Federation was also assessing damage to farms and rural infrastructure, its chief, German Bahamon, said on social media.
Government faces criticism over death toll
The earthquake struck only days after newly inaugurated President Abelardo De La Espriella took office.
De La Espriella travelled to affected areas and pledged economic support for people who lost their homes.
His government had announced immediate austerity measures after taking office and is preparing to revise a more than $180 billion budget inherited from the previous left-wing administration.
The president gave a national death toll estimate around midday Monday, but the government has not provided an updated national figure despite the rising toll reported by local authorities.
Government entities were reportedly instructed not to release their own figures, a decision that has drawn criticism and created confusion over the true number of fatalities.
With communications still disrupted in some of the worst-hit areas, officials warned that it could take several days to establish the full scale of the destruction and determine the final death toll.
Rescue operations are expected to continue as crews search collapsed buildings for survivors while authorities assess the damage across Colombia’s hardest-hit regions.
Boluwatife Enome
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