Here's the latest
• Rescue efforts: Emergency responders are racing to find survivors after a magnitude 7.4 earthquake in western Colombia, which has killed at least 175 people, according to the Colombian Association of Capital Cities. The government has declared a national disaster and world leaders have offered assistance.
• Struggle of survivors: A senior UN worker warned food distribution will be crucial following the initial emergency response efforts and one indigenous leader who lives near the epicenter of the quake says they are yet to receive help. Fellow survivors have been recounting their terrifying experiences, with one describing it as like a scene from “The Exorcist.”
• Where it happened: The epicenter was located in San José del Palmar, in an underdeveloped area of western Colombia, about 150 miles west of Bogotá. The tremor was felt strongly in the nation’s capital, with alarms sounding and people evacuating to the streets as a precaution. You can track developments here, in maps and charts.
• Sigue nuestra cobertura en español.
Pope Leo offers prayers for those affected by Colombian earthquake
Pope Leo XIV is “deeply saddened to learn the painful news of the earthquake” in Colombia, the Vatican has said in a letter sent to the victims of the disaster.
In the letter, which was sent through the Colombian Episcopal Conference, the pope said he is praying “for the eternal rest of the deceased” and that he raises his “prayers to the Lord for the swift recovery of those affected by this tragedy.”
Leo sent his condolences to the families of the victims, expressing “his gratitude to all those who, with generous dedication, are working in the search, rescue, and assistance efforts for those affected,” the Vatican’s letter said.
“Today, we don’t have a home.” Family in Pereira describes terror during earthquake
Phone footage shows the moment when the 7.4 magnitude earthquake hit and Liliana Perez Ocampo’s family had to quickly evacuate their house in Pereira, one of the cities most affected by the catastrophe. “We are still in shock, it was agonizing to see how long it took for my son to get out,” she told CNN.
As all communications were cut in the city, she explained, “There was the anguish of not knowing anything about my young children who were at school.”
Today, she says, they don’t have a home. “We cannot go back to it, and how do you explain that to the children?”
At least 175 people confirmed dead as earthquake toll climbs
On Tuesday morning, the Colombian Association of Capital Cities reported that the death toll from the earthquake in Colombia had reached 165. However, that figure has since risen after authorities in Cali added 10 fatalities to their previous count, bringing the total number of deaths in the country’s major cities to 175 people killed.
The association’s tally – current as of 5:30 a.m. local time (6:30 a.m. ET) – listed 85 deaths in Cali, 55 in Pereira, nine in Quibdó, and five in Manizales. The group’s previous report, issued after participating in meetings with the national government to coordinate the emergency response, had put the death toll at 132.
Subsequently, the Cali Mayor’s Office reported – with figures current as of 6:30 a.m. local time (7:30 a.m. ET) – that the city had recorded 95 fatalities, 949 injuries, and 239 people trapped in the rubble.
The once-in-a-decade quake struck San José del Palmar in the mountainous region of Chocó earlier this week, with tremors hurtling through the capital Bogotá and several other densely populated cities, including Pereira and Cali. Colombia’s President Abelardo de la Espriella, who was only inaugurated on Friday, swiftly declared a state of national disaster, as international leaders pledged to bolster aid operations on the ground.
Survivor walks through rubble after Colombia quake leaves homes "destroyed"
A survivor of yesterday’s earthquake in western Colombia has spoken about how the disaster has affected his neighborhood, showcasing the rubble of destroyed homes that used to house his neighbors.
Watch more in the video above.
UN official forecasts growing need for “food assistance” in coming days
As paramedics scoured flattened buildings for earthquake survivors in Colombia on Tuesday, a senior UN worker warned food distribution will be crucial following the initial emergency response efforts.
Nils Grede, the country director for the UN’s World Food Programme (WFP) in Colombia, insisted getting amenities to survivors would be “important in these first days after the catastrophe.”
“We’ve just gone through this experience in Venezuela two months ago, going through the rubble, saving lives,” Grede told CNN’s Polo Sandoval on CNN Newsroom. “But very quickly, within the next few days, we will need to provide food assistance.”
The 7.4 magnitude quake on Monday came weeks after two once-in-a-century twin quakes tore through neighboring Venezuela in late June, killing more than 6,000 people and leaving families in the dark about missing loved ones after years of government mismanagement.
“We don’t yet know the magnitude that this will have in Colombia,” said Grede. “But, we could reach similar levels (to Venezuela) very quickly.”
Inside Colombia, tremors from the quake’s epicenter reached as far as the remote region of Chocó on Monday, where sparse inroads could potentially delay efforts to reach more than half a million residents, according to Grece. Elsewhere, the densely populated cities of Pereira and Manizales, located about 100 kilometers (62 miles) from the epicenter, were also hit. In total, about 5,000 buildings were impacted by the quake, the WFP official added.
CNN’s Polo Sandoval and Rahwa Asmerom contributed reporting.
Help has yet to reach isolated area near earthquake epicenter, says local leader
A indigenous leader who lives near the epicenter of Monday’s earthquake has told CNN that help has yet to reach the area.
Victor Chamapuro, leader of the Wounaan Indigenous Reserve “Buenavista” in Litoral del San Juan, Chocó department, told CNN that the earthquake “felt so strong.”
“All our houses are on the ground. Where are we going to sleep now? We have to be alert now, we’re sleeping outside,” he said.
Chamapuro added that one person in the community was injured, and called on authorities to send food and medicine.
The “Buenavista” reserve can only be reached by boat on a five-hour journey from the port of Buenaventura, on Colombia’s Pacific coast.
Chamapuro also sent video footage from the reserve showing flattened buildings that appear to be built from timber and corrugated iron sheets. Others can be seen still standing but with varying levels of damage.
EU provides satellite service and funding to help earthquake response
The European Union has mobilized its satellite service and is providing funding to help the response to the deadly 7.4 magnitude earthquake that struck Colombia yesterday, the bloc’s foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas has said.
“The EU has mobilized Copernicus, our satellite service, to support rescue and relief operations. We are providing funding to support the response, including through the Red Cross,” she outlined.
The EU’s crisis consular assistance mechanism has also been activated to support the bloc’s citizens who have been affected by the earthquake, Kallas said.
This means that EU citizens whose home country does not have a diplomatic presence in Colombia can request help in being evacuated from the country, according to the European Commission’s website.
"It was like a scene from 'The Exorcist' the way the bed was moving," says survivor
Survivors of Monday’s earthquake have recalled the “terrifying” experience in interviews with CNN en Español.
Gabriel Mónaco, who lives on the 25th floor of a building in Medellín, said that he was in bed on his phone when everything started shaking.
“It was like a scene from ‘The Exorcist’ the way the bed was moving,” he said, referencing the 1973 horror movie.
“I woke my wife up and we ran into the bathroom,” added Monaco. “It only lasted about two and a half minutes but it felt like a week… My wife was praying.”
His building was built around a decade ago with anti-earthquake systems, Monaco explained, adding: “I’m seeing that a lot of older buildings that unfortunately don’t have this kind of system have collapsed.”
Martha Sepúlveda, who lives in the Ciudad Salitre neighborhood in the Colombian capital Bogotá, told CNN en Español that “everything was moving, I almost couldn’t open the door of my apartment.”
“My mum is in a wheelchair, but thanks be to God we live on the first floor and we were able to get her out,” she added.
Carlos Restrepo, who lives in the same neighborhood, told CNN en Español that “it felt like everything was going to fall on top of us, it was terrifying.”
“Luckily here in Bogotá it was only a big scare,” he said. “But we have relatives in Cali and we were really worried about them.”
In pictures: Rescue workers use torchlight to search overnight for survivors of earthquake
Rescue workers searched through the night for survivors of the magnitude 7.4 earthquake that struck western Colombia yesterday.
Images from rescue operations in the cities of Pereira and Cali show workers and volunteers using torches to look for survivors in the rubble of collapsed buildings.
“Let’s not lose faith”: Firefighters and churchgoers rally for quake survivors in Cali
Dozens of emergency workers, police officers and volunteers waded through the wreckage of a collapsed building in Cali, western Colombia, on Tuesday, after a mammoth earthquake ripped through the South American country.
Reuters footage from the aftermath showed yellow trucks mounted on sheets of concrete, as survivors sifted through grey debris. Firefighters had recovered two men and one woman from the site – where two children were still trapped under the rubble.
One local official warned hospitals and schools had been “badly affected.” “Several parts of the city have been affected, with structural damage,” said Cali Fire Department Sergeant Pedro Ramirez. “We are trying to reach every last area and verify whether there are signs of life,” he added.
The 7.4 magnitude earthquake on Monday was the strongest to hit Colombia in over the past decade, striking at the heart of the country’s coffee-growing region and catapulting communities into a state of national disaster. At least 132 people have been killed, the Colombian Association of Capital Cities said on Monday, although the death toll is expected to climb.
Elsewhere in Cali, broken red bricks were strewn across the courtyard of a damaged church. Video from Reuters showed worshippers congregating near the ruins of the community hub in the Tequendama neighborhood.
“The church was affected by the earthquake, but here we are,” said Yanine Rodriguez. “The Lord of mercy protects us and gives strength to those who have lost their loved ones and their material possessions. Let’s not lose faith and keep praying,” she added.
At least 132 dead in Colombia's strongest earthquake in a decade. Catch up on the latest
At least 132 people have died and hundreds more have been injured after a magnitude 7.4 earthquake struck western Colombia yesterday, according to the Colombian Association of Capital Cities.
Rescue workers searched through the night for survivors amid the rubble of collapsed buildings.
Here’s the latest:
- The earthquake that shook Colombia was the strongest recorded in the country “in the last decade,” according to the director of the country’s geological service.
- At least 85 people have died in the Colombian city of Cali following the earthquake, the city’s mayor Alejandro Eder said in an update posted to X today. In an earlier update, Eder said 188 people were missing in the city, while 37 had been rescued.
- Sixteen people were rescued from an aerial cable car system in the western Colombian city of Pereira, after being trapped for roughly six hours, the city’s mayor’s office said yesterday.
- The US is committing $15.5 million in funding to Colombia for shelter, food, protection and earthquake assessments after the disaster, the State Department announced yesterday on X.
CNN’s Michael Rios, Gonzalo Zegarra, Max Saltman, Lex Harvey, Rocio Munoz and Jennifer Hansler contributed to this reporting.
What to know about where the earthquake hit
The epicenter of Monday’s earthquake was in Chocó, Colombia’s poorest department, where more than two-thirds of the population live in poverty, according to government statistics.
Apart from Quibdo, the capital, much of the region is accessible only by air or water because it has few roads, according to a 2021 report by ACAPS. In recent years, the region has also struggled with violence from organized crime groups and militant organizations, including the National Liberation Army (ELN).
Outside of Chocó, the quake also shook part of the country’s “Coffee Axis,” a hub for the prodigious Colombian coffee business. Dozens of people have died in Risaralda, a department in the heart of the Coffee Axis, and cities throughout the region have reported extensive damage.
This post has been updated.
What the earthquakes in Colombia and Venezuela have in common
The 7.4 magnitude earthquake that struck Colombia occurred just over a month after two quakes killed more than 6,300 people in neighboring Venezuela. Other than sharing the same tectonic plate, however, the tremors don’t have much in common, according to a geology expert.
“The geological and geotectonic context is completely different,” said Gustavo Ortiz, a PhD in geological sciences from Argentina’s National Scientific and Technical Research Council.
In western South America, quakes often strike when one plate — in this case the Nazca Plate in the Pacific — sinks beneath the South American Plate, in a process known as subduction, Ortiz told CNN’s Rafael Romo.
“In contrast, for that fateful earthquake in Venezuela, the plates interacting were the South American and Caribbean plates, further north. In that instance, the plates moved laterally against each other, and no subduction occurred,” he said.
Ortiz noted the earthquakes in Venezuela occurred near the surface — at a depth of less than 20 kilometers (about 12.5 miles) — whereas the seismic event recorded earlier this Monday in Colombia took place at a depth of more than 100 kilometers ( about 62 miles).
Colombia hasn't had an earthquake this strong in decades, official says
The 7.4 magnitude earthquake that shook Colombia on Monday was the strongest recorded in the country “in the last decade,” according to the director of the country’s geological service.
Julio Fierro Morales, director of the Colombian Geological Service, said in a video statement that two aftershocks have been recorded so far, with magnitudes of 2.8 and 4.8. The latter was “widely felt.”
Fierro Morales noted that western Colombia lies along a subduction zone, where one tectonic plate slides beneath another.
“For this reason, this region has experienced earthquakes of considerable magnitude throughout its history,” Fierre Morales said. “Among the historical precedents is the earthquake that occurred on November 23, 1979, with a magnitude of 7.2.”
Dozens of people were killed and hundreds injured in the 1979 earthquake, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s records.
Death toll from Monday's quake rises to 132 as rescue efforts continue
Welcome back to our coverage.
Emergency response efforts are ongoing after a powerful earthquake struck Colombia Monday morning, collapsing buildings and sending people across the country racing out of their homes, workplaces and schools.
At least 132 have died and 570 have been injured as a result of the magnitude 7.4 quake, including 60 deaths in the western city of Pereira alone, according to an update from the Colombian Association of Capital Cities Monday evening. These figures are likely to rise as rescue operations continue.
Here are the latest headlines on the earthquake and the emergency response:
- Five capital cities across the country are in a red alert, 86 buildings have collapsed and seven airports have suspended operations, according to the Colombian Association of Capital Cities. At least 188 people are missing in Cali, the city’s mayor said.
- Sixteen people were evacuated from an aerial cable car system in Pereira after being trapped for six hours, the city’s mayor’s office said.
- The US is committing $15.5 million to Colombia for shelter, food, protection and earthquake assessments, the State Department said. The US is also “actively assisting” American tourists, the embassy in Bogota said.
- The quake hit Colombia’s so-called coffee axis, a mountainous, lush and culturally important region which helps to power Colombia’s economy. The area was the site of another earthquake in 1999 which killed nearly 1,200 people.
Michael Rios, Rocio Munoz, Fernando Ramos and Jennifer Hansler contributed reporting.
