LEHIGH VALLEY, Pa. – At least 111 people are dead, after a powerful 7.4 magnitude earthquake in western Colombia. Officials say the quake was followed by 21 aftershocks.<\/p>\n
It’s the country’s strongest earthquake in the 21st century.<\/p>\n
Hundreds of buildings are damaged and Colombia\u2019s President Abelardo de la Espriella, has declared a national disaster emergency.<\/p>\n
While search efforts continue in the hardest-hit regions, families here in the Lehigh Valley are leaning on each other.<\/p>\n
“I heard about it this morning, and it was like my heart sank,” Carol Obando-Derstine says. “We were just frantic trying to connect with different family members, because I still have a lot of family there in Colombia.”<\/p>\n
Carol Obando-Derstine is from Pereira, one of the major cities hit by the earthquake.<\/p>\n
“The airport in Pereira, where I’m from, had a partial collapse. I saw footage of the hospitals collapsed,” Obando-Derstine says. “We were able to connect with everyone, I thought, but there seems to be one aunt that I thought that was accounted for and that we haven’t been able to reach. So that’s really scary.”<\/p>\n
One of her cousins had to flee a high rise as it shook.<\/p>\n
“She said the force was so strong, she had to run out the way barefoot and 15 flights of stairs, holding the railing because the force was so strong,” Obando-Derstine says.<\/p>\n
That same anxiety rippled through the Lehigh Valley including at Colombian-owned spots like Mis Raices.<\/p>\n
“I feel, like, very anxious when I wake up,” Daniel Ortiz says. “My family is okay. My friends are okay, so that’s good. There’s many people in Cali or Pereira who are affected by this.”<\/p>\n
“Colombians were trying to help us each other. We are strong. We’ll be back, stronger as we can,” Ortiz says.<\/p>\n
Anyone who is looking to help can donate to the Colombian Red Cross as search efforts continue.<\/p>\n
“Right now, the communication towers are also impacted. So, folks are not able to connect with loved ones. So, they’re also helping with that,” Obando-Derstine explains.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"LEHIGH VALLEY, Pa. – At least 111 people are dead, after a powerful 7.4 magnitude earthquake in western…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":263161,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[119,121,120,29817,111233,157,111234],"class_list":["post-263160","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-allentown","tag-allentown","tag-allentown-headlines","tag-allentown-news","tag-colombia","tag-colombian-red-cross","tag-lehigh-valley","tag-quake"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/263160","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=263160"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/263160\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/263161"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=263160"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=263160"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=263160"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}