Declaring a state of emergency, President Abelardo de la Espriella announced later that the death toll had reached 111, with a further 87 injuries. He added that he would travel to the quake-hit region. <\/p>\n
The toll is expected to rise further as an untold number are reportedly trapped in collapsed and damaged buildings<\/p>\n
The early-morning quake was also felt in Ecuador, Panama and Venezuela \u2013 itself hit by a devastating quake in late June \u2013 and prompted building evacuations in the Colombian capital, Bogota.<\/p>\n
News footage showed collapsed buildings across western Colombia, though officials said they did not fear a tsunami.<\/p>\n
The governor of Colombia\u2019s Choco province wrote on X that there was serious damage in the provincial capital Quibdo, where video showed collapsed buildings.<\/p>\n
Choco was at the epicentre of the quake, and the death toll from the area was not immediately known.<\/p>\n
Alejandro Eder, the mayor of Cali, Colombia\u2019s third largest city, reported at least 20 buildings had collapsed and people were trapped as \u201cmajor damage\u201d that was being evaluated with drones.<\/p>\n
News outlets aired images of buildings also destroyed in cities such as Manizales.<\/p>\n
Rescuers search for survivors at a collapsed building in Manizales, Colombia. Photo \/ AFP
Authorities fear the death toll will rise significantly, due to the level of damage. Photo \/ AFP<\/p>\n
Martha Estrada, a 66-year-old resident of Eje Cafetero. said: \u201cThere is no electricity or cell phone coverage. It was strong, really strong. Things fell in my house.\u201d<\/p>\n
Six small airports in western Colombia suspended operations, the civil aeronautics agency said.<\/p>\n
Bogota 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.<\/p>\n
In Bogota, people ran out into the street in their pyjamas as emergency sirens rang out.<\/p>\n
Twin earthquakes in Venezuela, of magnitude 7.2 and 7.5 on June 24, killed more than 6000 people and caused devastating property damage.<\/p>\n
– AFP<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Declaring a state of emergency, President Abelardo de la Espriella announced later that the death toll had reached…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":565230,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[22],"tags":[20700,74,8239,806,12683,23708,2223,13982,6694,690,634,14167,6752,273,1888,2082,72976,5840,46401,111,139,69,384,17216,8206,766,530,10042,92399,147,1870,27053,242208,88372,42032,102],"class_list":["post-565229","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-environment","tag-20700","tag-after","tag-american","tag-as","tag-buildings","tag-colombia","tag-confirmed","tag-continues","tag-countries","tag-dead","tag-death","tag-destroyed","tag-earthquake","tag-environment","tag-first","tag-for","tag-latin","tag-least","tag-neighbouring","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-people","tag-powerful","tag-quake","tag-reports","tag-residents","tag-rises","tag-rocked","tag-science","tag-search","tag-shocked","tag-surveyed","tag-survivors","tag-toll","tag-with"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/565229","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=565229"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/565229\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/565230"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=565229"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=565229"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=565229"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}