More than 100 people died after a powerful earthquake hit western Colombia on Monday, collapsing buildings, damaging hospitals and other structures, and trapping victims beneath debris in what officials called the country’s strongest earthquake of the 21st century.
The disaster struck only days after Abelardo De La Espriella was sworn in as president, plunging his new administration into its first major crisis. The catastrophe also revived memories of devastating twin earthquakes that hit neighboring Venezuela in June.
“The national government has all of its capabilities deployed to protect lives, assist affected communities and deliver aid wherever it is needed,” De La Espriella said in a national address at around 1 p.m. local time after declaring a national state of emergency and announcing a death toll of 111. “The first priority is rescuing the people trapped under the rubble.”
De La Espriella traveled to Quibdo, the capital of coastal Choco province, where he pledged rent subsidies for people who had lost their homes, before heading to Cali, the largest city in western Colombia.
Although the president had been expected to announce an updated national death toll Monday evening, he instead provided figures only for Valle del Cauca province, where Cali is located.
He said 35 people had died there and about 700 had been injured. Some local media outlets reported a national death toll of 132, although the source of that figure remained unclear.
The U.S. Geological Survey measured the earthquake at magnitude 7.4 and said it struck at a depth of 107 km (66 miles). Colombia’s Geological Service described it as the strongest earthquake recorded in the country during the 21st century.
As darkness fell, rescue workers and volunteers wearing headlamps continued searching through collapsed structures for survivors trapped beneath the rubble.
Authorities in Cali, Armenia and Manizales imposed curfews. Cali’s mayor said concerns over looting had prompted the deployment of police and military personnel across the city. De La Espriella also promised to send 1,000 additional security personnel to Cali.
Officials in Cali said the Petronio Alvarez festival, an annual celebration of Pacific music scheduled to begin Wednesday, had been postponed.
Footage broadcast by Caracol Television showed rescuers pulling a dust-covered baby from beneath a mound of rubble. The broadcaster reported that the six-month-old girl and her mother had been rescued from beneath a five-story building in Cali.
Other footage from the city showed rescue workers using ropes to evacuate people through the windows of a local hospital.
BUILDINGS COLLAPSE, AIRPORTS SUSPEND OPERATIONS
In the badly affected city of Pereira, rescue workers told local television that they were communicating with a young boy trapped beneath a bakery while crane operators worked to remove severely damaged sections of buildings.
A four-story building collapsed in Pereira during the earthquake, according to Reuters-verified video. Footage from Manizales also showed one of the side towers of the city’s landmark neo-Gothic cathedral collapsing, sending debris onto surrounding streets.
READ ALSO: UN Seeks More Funding for Venezuela Earthquake Response
Reuters footage showed rescue workers, police officers and volunteers clearing debris by hand and loading rubble into trucks as they searched for survivors beneath collapsed buildings. Other images showed damage to residential towers and emergency-service 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 and was preparing to search for additional survivors.
“They are alive,” he said. “We are making space so we can free them and get them out.”
Carmen Yasmin Garcia, 43, a Cali resident and rescue volunteer, said her group had helped seven people escape from a collapsed building, but four people and a dog remained trapped underneath.
“A moment ago there was scratching but now we can’t hear anything, we still have faith that the dog is alive and we can get these people out,” she said. “The more people lending a hand the better.”
Saul Paz, 69, who lives in a partially collapsed residential complex in Cali, told Reuters he had been in the dining room with his son and wife when the earthquake began.
“I think if it had lasted five seconds more there would be nothing left,” he said. “There are people who went to bed last night with a house and a car and today they won’t have anything.”
Colombia’s civil aviation authority suspended operations at several airports across the region, including those in Pereira, Manizales, Quibdo, Armenia, Cartago and Buenaventura, while engineers conducted structural safety inspections.
COLOMBIA’S POSITION ON THE RING OF FIRE
Colombia lies along the seismically active Pacific Ring of Fire and experiences thousands of earthquakes every month, most of them relatively minor.
Suzan van der Lee, a seismologist at Northwestern University, said the earthquake’s strength, inland location and strike-slip movement may have intensified the damage in populated valleys despite the quake occurring at significant depth.
“This one was far below the crust, and in theory it shouldn’t cause as much shaking. At this magnitude, it did actually cause a lot of shaking,” she said, noting that Colombia presents particular challenges for seismologists because several major tectonic plates interact in the region.
Colombia’s Geological Service reported that 21 aftershocks had been recorded by late Monday and warned that additional tremors were possible.
The country’s coffee-growing region suffered severe destruction in 1999 when a magnitude 6.2 earthquake killed more than 1,000 people, particularly around the cities of Armenia and Pereira.
