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Associated Press

A powerful magnitude 7.4 earthquake struck western Colombia on Monday, killing at least 111 people, injuring 87 and damaging hundreds of buildings, President Abelardo de la Espriella said.
The president declared an emergency, which will expedite funding for the earthquake recovery, and said he would visit the disaster zone, centred around the rural region of Choco.
“The national government has ⁠all of ⁠its capabilities deployed to protect lives, assist affected communities and deliver aid wherever it ‌is needed,” the president said.
“The first priority is rescuing the people ‌trapped under the rubble.”
The epicentre was in San Jose Del Palmar, a community of about 4,800 people in the Choco region about 400km (250 miles) west of Bogota, the US Geological Survey and Colombia’s counterpart reported. The USGS said it struck at a depth of 107km (66 miles).
The earthquake was also felt in neighbouring Ecuador and Panama, though minimal damage was reported there.

The earthquake left cities across the west of the country – Pereira, Quibdo, Cali and Manizales – ravaged.
A mix of residents and search teams picked through the rubble of collapsed buildings amid concerns by authorities of aftershocks. Colombia’s interior minister said more than 20 municipalities across the country had been hit.
Colombia’s Pacific region around the quake’s epicentre lies along the “Ring of Fire”, the line of seismic faults encircling the Pacific Ocean where most of the world’s earthquakes happen.
Jorge Moncayo, a 64-year-old taxi driver in Cali, said he saw plumes of dust shoot up across the city from his home in the hills of the city as buildings collapsed. Residents in the city and rescuers were searching the rubble for survivors.
“My entire house shook,” he said. “I’ve never lived through such a powerful earthquake.”

Colombia’s Geological Service said on Monday that it had been “the highest magnitude earthquake registered in Colombia in the last decade” and that it had been followed by two magnitude 2.8 and 4.8 aftershocks.
Authorities also reported that flights were suspended in the airports of Manizales, Quibdo, Armenia, Cartago y Buenaventura and Pereira.
The earthquakes left many in the Andean nation unnerved after two back-to-back quakes devastated neighbouring Venezuela in late June, destroyed hundreds of buildings and killed more than 5,000 people.
At the same time the quake brought down buildings in Colombia, desperate families in Venezuela continued to search the ruins for the bodies of their loved ones.
In Pereira, photos and videos published by local media showed pieces of the airport ceiling falling down on travellers taking shelter and screaming, and people running through rubble in a panic.
Pereira’s mayor, Mauricio Salazar, told a local radio station that at least 18 people had died and that many more were trapped under “a massive quantity of collapsed buildings”.

In nearby Manizales, a city nestled in the coffee-producing mountains of Colombia, one of the towers of the neo-Gothic cathedral collapsed and fell on the nave.
Jorge Eduardo Rojas, the mayor of Manizales, said two people had died in the city “because of the quake” and asked residents to stay outside in case of aftershocks.
Authorities in the rural state of Choco, the epicentre of the quake, reported injured people and damaged buildings in the capital, but provided few details.
In Cali, a city of 2 million people, Mayor Alejandro Eder said residents were trapped in at least 19 buildings that had collapsed.
Small earthquakes are common in central and western Colombia but those above magnitude 6 are rare. In 1999, a magnitude 6.2 quake near the city of Armenia killed more than 1,100 people.

Response to the earthquake presents the first major challenge to de la Espriella, a Trump ally who was sworn in as president over the weekend.
Messages of support rolled in from leaders across the Americas, including Mexico, Brazil, Ecuador, El Salvador and the United States.
“The Trump administration is closely monitoring the large earthquake that struck Colombia and stands ready to support the people of Colombia” and de la Espriella,” wrote Secretary of State Marco Rubio in a post on social media.
A number of countries offered aid and the United Nations’ deputy spokesman, Farhan Haq, said “we stand ready to help as needed”.
Additional reporting by Reuters


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A collapsed building in the aftermath of an earthquake in Cali, Colombia on Monday. Photo: Screengrab from video via Reuters

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President Abelardo de la Espriella declared a state of emergency and said rescuing people ‌trapped under the rubble is the priority


President Abelardo de la Espriella declared a state of emergency and said rescuing people ‌trapped under the rubble is the priority.


Colombia

Ecuador

Earthquakes

.css-1c6uqr6{color:inherit;font-weight:inherit;font-size:inherit;font-family:inherit;line-height:inherit;overflow-wrap:break-word;}President Abelardo de la Espriella declared a state of emergency and said rescuing people ‌trapped under the rubble is the priority

President Abelardo de la Espriella declared a state of emergency and said rescuing people ‌trapped under the rubble is the priority