At least 111 people were dead and scores of buildings collapsed after a 7.4-magnitude earthquake struck western Colombia on Monday, authorities said.
The temblor, which struck near San José del Palmar on Colombia’s Pacific coast shortly after 7:30 a.m. local time, was the strongest to hit the country in a decade, according to the Colombian Geological Service. It was felt in Bogotá, some 150 miles away, and in neighboring Ecuador, Panama and Venezuela, where twin earthquakes in June killed thousands.
Rescue workers were searching for survivors in the rubble of fallen buildings in several cities. At midday, 111 people were reported dead, 61 buildings collapsed, and 52 schools, 18 health centers, 17 community centers and six airports affected, President Abelardo de la Espriella told reporters.
The dead included at least 40 people in the Risaralda department and 27 in Valle del Cauca, their governors told local news outlets.
The Risaralda deaths included three at Matecaña International Airport in Pereira, where a section of the passenger terminal roof collapsed. Videos showed plumes of gray dust rising above the city of about 470,000 people, the commercial center of Colombia’s coffee region.
Chocó Gov. Nubia Carolina Córdoba-Curi reported nine deaths in Quibdó, the capital. The department, home to a large Afro-Colombian community, is one of the country’s poorest. Videos on social media showed buildings in several areas partially or fully collapsed.
Jorge Eduardo Rojas, mayor of Manizales in Caldas department, reported three deaths, 12 buildings damaged or collapsed and many gas leaks. Cali Mayor Alejandro Eder said at least 30 buildings in Colombia’s third-largest city had collapsed, with people trapped inside. Antioquia’s governor said one person had been killed in that department.
The quake reached a depth of nearly 70 miles, the U.S. Geological Survey reported. There was no tsunami threat, Colombia’s General Maritime Directorate said.
The disaster is an early challenge for de la Espriella, who was inaugurated Friday. De la Espriella said Monday that he would establish a unified command post to respond and would travel to the region.
U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio said the Trump administration “stands ready to support the people of Colombia” and the de la Espriella administration. The right-wing president is expected to be a key partner to President Donald Trump, who endorsed him before the second round of Colombia’s election, held in June.
Trump sent a delegation on Friday, led by then-acting attorney general Todd Blanche, to attend de la Espriella’s inauguration in Cali. The city was the largest to report significant earthquake damage on Monday.
Colombia’s Pacific coast lies along the Ring of Fire, a belt of frequent earthquakes and volcanic activity.
Videos from Manizales, a university city built along steep, landslide-prone Andean ridges, showed serious damage to the city’s Metropolitan Cathedral Basilica, the tallest cathedral in Colombia.
The country’s civil aviation authority suspended operations at airports in Pereira, Manizales, Quibdó, Armenia, Cartago and Buenaventura.
In Bogotá, thousands of people evacuated buildings. Mayor Carlos Fernando Galán said buildings suffered superficial cracks but no structural damage. The city was ready to help the hardest-hit communities, he said; 100 rescuers prepared to deploy to areas prioritized by the national government.
The earthquake struck a region with a searing memory of seismic catastrophe. In 1999, a 6.1-magnitude quake devastated Armenia, a city of about 300,000 in the heart of the UNESCO-listed Coffee Cultural Landscape, killing an estimated 1,100 to 1,200 people. About 60 percent of Armenia’s poorly engineered structures collapsed.
The event reshaped Colombian disaster policy, spurring a national reconstruction fund and stricter enforcement of the country’s seismic building code.
The twin earthquakes, of 7.2 and 7.5 magnitudes, that struck Venezuela 39 seconds apart on June 24 killed more than 6,000 people.
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