Once again the ground shook. Once again buildings fell. Once again they wondered where they would be safe.
Winder and Deivi Delfín, ages 15 and 17, survived the back-to-back quakes in Venezuela in June that killed thousands, including their mother, younger brother and grandmother. Last month, their 26-day search for the bodies of their loved ones was the focus of a New York Times article. Then the boys moved to Cali, Colombia, where their father lives and works as a barber.
On Monday, when a 7.4 magnitude quake hit not far from Cali, they found themselves once again at the center of a disaster. At 7:34 a.m. their home began to shake. They ran out in a panic, said their father, Deivid Delfín, 44, who was out of the house at the time. He ran, too — toward home.
At first, he could not find the boys. When he finally did, he said, “I started crying and everything, because I was scared of what I had experienced and what my boys had experienced. I don’t want anything to happen to my children.”
Weeks before, Mr. Delfín had said he hoped to give his sons a fresh start, far from disaster. Venezuela and Colombia are neighbors, and the countries have often shared tragedies. For years, victims of Colombia’s internal conflict fled to Venezuela, and then Venezuelan migrants seeking to escape an authoritarian government fled to Colombia.
“Right now we’re outside the house, just sitting here,” Mr. Delfín said on Monday afternoon. They were too scared to go inside, he added. “But we’re OK. We’re here, alive.”
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