Colombia: At least 20 people were killed and dozens of buildings collapsed after a powerful 7.4-magnitude earthquake struck western Colombia on Monday, trapping residents under debris and leaving several people injured.
The tremors prompted people to evacuate their homes and were felt as far away as the capital, Bogota, as well as neighbouring Ecuador.
Epicentre In Choco Region
The epicentre was in San Jose Del Palmar, a community of about 4,800 people in the Choco region, about 400 kilometres west of Bogota, according to the US Geological Survey (USGS) and its Colombian counterpart.
The USGS said the earthquake struck at a depth of 107 kilometres.
Local officials confirmed that at least 18 people were killed in Pereira and two in Manizales.
Cities across western Colombia were left badly damaged, with residents and rescue workers searching through the rubble as authorities warned of possible aftershocks.
Jorge Moncayo, a 64-year-old taxi driver in Cali, Colombia's third-biggest city, said he saw plumes of dust rising across the city from his home in the mountains as buildings collapsed after the earthquake.
Residents and rescue workers in Cali were already searching through the rubble of collapsed buildings on Monday morning.
“My entire house shook,” Moncayo said. “I've never lived through such a powerful earthquake.”
Cathedral Tower Collapses In Manizales
In Manizales, a city in Colombia's coffee-producing mountains, one of the towers of the neo-Gothic cathedral collapsed and fell on the nave.
Manizales Mayor Jorge Eduardo Rojas said two people had died in the city “because of the quake” and urged residents to remain outside because of the risk of aftershocks.
Choco Governor Nubia Cordoba said on social media that “there are injuries and serious damage to buildings" in Quibdo, the regional capital with a population of about 130,000. She did not provide further details.
Footage shared by local media outlets showed homes and small buildings collapsing in Pereira, Cali and Quibdo.
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, locally known as “temblores,” are common in central and western Colombia, but earthquakes above magnitude 6.0 are rare. In 1999, a magnitude-6.2 earthquake near Armenia killed more than 1,100 people.
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President Takes Charge Of Emergency Response
Colombia's newly inaugurated President Abelardo de la Espriella said on Monday that he had personally taken charge of the government's emergency response in San José del Palmar following the earthquake.
“You are not alone. The state is present and taking action,” he said.
The earthquake came after two powerful earthquakes of magnitude 7.2 and 7.5 struck Venezuela in quick succession in late June. Those earthquakes destroyed hundreds of buildings and killed more than 5,000 people.
