LAST UPDATE
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26 mins ago
AT LEAST 69 people have been confirmed dead after a powerful earthquake struck western Colombia, according to local officials.
Emergency teams rushed to help victims and search for survivors in the rubble after geologists recorded the quake at a magnitude of 7.4, with an epicentre 100km deep in the San Jose del Palmar municipality.
The quake, which struck at 7.34am local time (1.34pm Irish time), was also felt in Ecuador, Panama and Venezuela and prompted building evacuations in the Colombian capital Bogotá.
People search through the rubble of a collapsed building in Cali. Alamy Stock Photo
Alamy Stock Photo
News footage showed collapsed buildings across western Colombia, though officials said they did not fear a tsunami.
“The situation is critical,” Mayor Mauricio Salazar of the provincial capital Pereira told Caracol Radio.
The tremor killed at least 40 people in the Risaralda region.
Twenty-seven people were killed in the Valle del Cauca department, and two more died in the city of Manizales, in Colombia’s coffee-growing region.
The quake caused a tower of Manizales’ beloved cathedral to fall over.
“A great many buildings” in the city sustained damage, said administrator Jaime Zuluaga.
“Traffic is paralysed and people don’t want to go back to their homes for fear of an aftershock.”
Debris covers a car in Cali. Alamy Stock Photo
Alamy Stock Photo
The governor of Colombia’s Choco province wrote on X that there was serious damage in the provincial capital Quibdó, where video showed collapsed buildings.
Choco was at the epicentre of the quake, and the death toll from the area was not immediately known.
Alejandro Eder, the mayor of Cali, Colombia’s third-largest city, reported at least 20 buildings had collapsed and people were trapped as “major damage” that was being evaluated with drones.
Colombia’s Geological Service said that it was “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.
‘Strong, really strong’
“There is no electricity or cell phone coverage. It was strong, really strong. Things fell in my house,” Martha Estrada, a 66-year-old resident of Eje Cafetero, which means coffee-growing region, told AFP.
Residents and workers search through the rubble of a collapsed buiding in Cali.
“The quake was very, very strong,” said Valeria Polo, a 29-year-old content creator in Bogotá.
Six small airports in western Colombia suspended operations, the civil aeronautics agency said.
Bogotá Mayor Carlos Galan said on Blu Radio that damage in the national capital appeared to be limited to cracks in the facades of houses and buildings.
President Abelardo de la Espriella announced he would travel to the quake-hit region.
In Bogotá people ran out into the street in their pyjamas as emergency sirens rang out, AFP reporters saw.
Twin earthquakes in Venezuela of magnitude 7.2 and 7.5 on 24 June killed more than 6,000 people and caused devastating property damage.
Additional reporting by PA