The latest partial toll after the magnitude 7.4 earthquake that shook western Colombia on Monday already counts 181 dead, 2,595 injured, and 195 missing, according to President Abelardo De La Espriella on Tuesday. It is the most destructive earthquake since the one in 1999, which devastated Armenia and several municipalities of the Coffee Axis, leaving nearly 1,200 dead.
Read more Death toll rises to 181 and more than 1,310 injured from the earthquake in Colombia
De la Espriella, along with the first lady, Ana Lucía Pineda, arrived in Pereira, where much of the metropolitan area concentrates a large part of the deaths from Monday’s earthquake. The president spoke with local officials and expressed his support in the rescue tasks, which are advancing against the clock in the city located in the Coffee Axis.
In his statements, the president assured that in Pereira there are already a total of 79 dead, 278 injured, 37 missing persons, and a total of 243 rescued. Additionally, the number of collapsed buildings has already risen to 48 in the capital of the Risaralda department, which borders San José del Palmar (Chocó), the epicenter of the earthquake.
The first hours after the earthquake are a race against time: while family members, volunteers, firefighters, police, soldiers, and specialized teams remove tons of concrete and twisted steel, dozens of people remain missing and hope clings to any sound that might indicate someone is still alive. Operations are concentrated in cities such as Cali, Pereira, Manizales, and Quindío, in the west of the nation, amid the likelihood that the number of fatalities will increase after the strongest earthquake to hit the country in decades.
Amid the rescue efforts, dramatic survival stories have emerged and others where efforts have not been enough to recover the earthquake victims alive.
This is the case in the municipality of Bahía Solano, in the department of Chocó. Its inhabitants are in mourning after the death of Mateo Valencia Valencia, the young son of Mayor Jairson Leonel Valencia Pinilla and social manager Yirley Valencia. The information was officially communicated by the Bahía Solano Mayor’s Office, which published a photograph of the boy accompanied by a message of solidarity with his parents and other relatives.
According to the municipal administration, Mateo died in the collapse of the building where he was. The boy was six years old and was in Quibdó when the emergency occurred. Local media reported that the child was trapped after the collapse of his school’s infrastructure.
In its message, the administration assured that the death of the child represents a hard blow not only for his family but for the entire municipality. “Mateo’s passing deeply mourns our institutionality and the entire municipality of Bahía Solano,” expressed the Mayor’s Office.
The tragedy also struck national sports: Juan Alberto Barrios, former member of the Colombia Basketball Team, died in Cali amid the emergency caused by the strong seismic movement. Barrios was part of the Colombia Team during the second half of the 1970s and the early 1980s, representing the country in international competitions. In Cali, he worked as a physical education teacher at the INEM school, an institution where he supported formative and sports processes for young students.
Another story that has moved Colombia is that of Lenny Fernández, a young lawyer from Pasto, Nariño, who had lived in Cali for several years. Known for her love of animals and linked to the Pasto Animal Defense Board, her death was confirmed in recent hours after the earthquake. Fernández died under the rubble of the Ana Pilar building, in the Cuarto de Legua neighborhood of Cali.
The most striking thing is that her body was found protecting her pet, a dog named Salomón, who survived thanks to that gesture, detailed the newspaper El Tiempo. “Cousin of my heart, you leave us so sad, but the love for the little animals, your Salomón, and the love for God we will keep as a lesson. See you soon, cousin. We will meet again,” commented a relative on social media. “A heroine, a little angel in heaven. Rest in peace,” say close ones lamenting her death.
The emergency has also left many families waiting for news about the whereabouts of their loved ones in the places where structural collapses occurred. One of the reported cases corresponds to Iliana Giraldo Aponte, an 11-year-old girl who remains trapped under the rubble of a collapsed building in Cali, Valle del Cauca. It happened in the Capri neighborhood, a sector that registers one of the highest levels of damage in the city’s urban infrastructure.
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At the disaster site, Alexander Giraldo, the girl’s father, remains waiting for the arrival of rescue teams to advance extraction efforts. Emergency units prioritize attention in this area following requests made by the sector’s residents.
According to information provided by relatives, Iliana would be under the rubble along with her grandparents. Carlos Arturo Aponte, 62, and Estela Marín de Aponte, 61, had lived there for 12 years.
“We are in a building that had two blocks, one of which collapsed to the right side, where my parents’ apartment was. They were with my niece, my father had his birthday on Sunday and they were celebrating,” Carlos Aponte, a journalist from Cali who anxiously awaits news of his parents and niece, told the newspaper El Tiempo.
The family’s hope rests on a sign: a thermal camera recorded the presence of three bodies and two smaller ones, which suggests they took refuge in one of the bathrooms along with the girl and the pets. “Most likely they went into one of the bathrooms because the camera registers life. It could be that in the rush to escape they locked themselves in with the little animals and the girl,” explained Aponte, while rescue teams continue their work.
Within the tragedy, there are also almost miraculous survival cases. A mother and her baby were rescued alive this Monday in the Ciudad Capri neighborhood, in southern Cali, after being trapped under the rubble of a five-story building that collapsed during the earthquake recorded on Monday at 7:34.
Rescue teams arrived at the site around 9:30 in the morning. According to rescuer Carlos Ortiz, during the first minutes after the collapse there was silence among the rubble. About 20 minutes later, voices of people trapped alive began to be heard.
Ortiz explained to Noticias Caracol that during the operation they found the mother and the baby. “Fortunately, we found the 6-month-old baby with his mother, which gave us much hope to keep working; we have even rescued 7 people so far and are currently searching; we have signs of life from an elderly couple and their 7-year-old grandson.”
The rescuer also reported on the baby’s health after being removed from the structure. “Fortunately, he is stable, with small lacerations and others at the time of extraction, but he is stable and was also attended by paramedics in the area.”
A 35-year-old young man was also rescued “thanks to the team of 60 firefighters from Bogotá deployed to Cali,” as explained by the mayor of the Colombian capital, Carlos Fernando Galán. According to the mayor, the specialized Urban Search and Rescue (USAR) team of the Official Fire Department of Bogotá managed to rescue Carlos Esteban Rebolledo alive around 3:57 a.m., who was trapped under the rubble of a collapsed structure in the city of Cali.
The man has minor injuries and is receiving medical attention, the mayor indicated. “He was dehydrated and had minor wounds, and has been transferred to the hospital,” added a spokesperson for the Bogotá firefighters.
Read more Earthquake in Colombia: death toll rises to 169 and more than 660 injured reported
