A powerful 7.4 magnitude earthquake struck western Colombia on Monday, killing at least 111 people, damaging hundreds of buildings and leaving many trapped under debris as loved ones and rescue workers searched through rubble. The numbers came fast. The suffering came faster. And the first thing the disaster exposed was how thin the line is between ordinary life and total collapse when people are left to fend for themselves amid broken concrete and a slow-moving official response.
Colombia’s President Abelardo de la Espriella reported the death toll and said at least 87 people were injured and around 1,600 buildings were damaged, including at least 61 that completely collapsed. He declared an emergency to speed funding for quake recovery and said he would visit the disaster zone. “We aren’t going to leave people alone. They are in our hearts and we are going to tend to people with our full determination,” he said. The language is familiar: the state arrives after the ground has already torn open, then promises care as if it had been there all along.
Who Was Left Digging Through the Ruins
In Cali, search teams and civilians picked through the remains of destroyed buildings, passing large pieces of concrete and other rubble down a long line of volunteers. That image says more than any press conference. People at street level moved first, shoulder to shoulder, while the machinery of authority caught up behind them. Jorge Moncayo, a 64-year-old taxi driver in Cali, said he saw plumes of dust shoot up across the city as buildings collapsed. “My entire house shook. I’ve never lived through such a powerful earthquake,” he said. “We’re thanking God we’re alive.”
Local authorities said the death toll included at least 40 people killed in the Risaralda region, where the hard-hit city of Pereira is located, as well as 27 people in the Valle del Cauca region, where Cali is located, including three children. Authorities also confirmed nine people killed in Choco, two in the Caldas region and a 73-year-old in the Antioquia region. It was not immediately clear where the other 32 people died. The count itself shows the scale of the wreckage, but it also shows how slowly even basic clarity arrives when the disaster spreads across regions and the people most affected are the ones least able to move or be reached.
The Poorest Region Pays First
The epicenter was in San Jose Del Palmar, a community of about 4,800 people in the Choco region about 250 miles, or 400 kilometers, west of Bogota, the U.S. Geological Survey said. The quake was felt in neighboring Ecuador and Panama, though minimal damage was reported there. The quake ravaged cities across western Colombia, including Pereira, Quibdo, Cali and Manizales.
Colombia’s Geological Service said Monday’s quake was the strongest recorded in Colombia “in the 21st century,” and that it was followed by 21 less powerful aftershocks. Colombia’s Pacific region around the quake’s epicenter lies along the Ring of Fire, the line of seismic faults encircling the Pacific Ocean where most of the world’s earthquakes occur. The Pacific, particularly the Choco region, is one of the poorest regions in the country. Nestled in the dense jungle, much of Choco is only reachable by boat or plane, which may pose a problem for authorities in assessing the wider toll. That remoteness is not just geography. It’s hierarchy made physical.
Authorities said flights were suspended in the airports of Manizales, Quibdo, Armenia, Cartago, Buenaventura and Pereira as they assessed damage. In Pereira, photos and videos published by local media showed pieces of the airport ceiling falling down on travelers taking shelter and screaming. In the city, people were shown running through rubble and plumes of dust. Pereira’s mayor, Mauricio Salazar, told a local radio station that more people were trapped under “a massive quantity of collapsed buildings.” In nearby Manizales, one of the towers of the neo-Gothic cathedral collapsed and fell on the nave. Mayor Jorge Eduardo Rojas asked residents to stay outside in case of aftershocks. In Cali, a city of 2 million people, Mayor Alejandro Eder said that residents were trapped in at least 19 buildings that had collapsed.
The State Arrives After the Ground Moves
Colombia’s newly inaugurated president said Monday that he had personally taken charge of the government’s response to the emergency. “You are not alone. The state is present and taking action,” he said. Response to the earthquake presents the first major challenge to de la Espriella, a Trump ally who was sworn in as president over the weekend. The timing is brutal. The office is new, the crisis is immediate, and the people under the rubble can’t wait for ceremony or political branding.
Messages of support rolled in from leaders across the Americas, including Mexico, Brazil, Ecuador, El Salvador and the United States. “The Trump administration is closely monitoring the large earthquake that struck Colombia and stands ready to support the people of Colombia,” U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio wrote in a post on X. A number of countries offered aid, and the U.N. deputy spokesman, Farhan Haq, said “we stand ready to help as needed.” Those offers may sound generous from the podium, but the article makes clear that the first response on the ground came from search teams, civilians and volunteers moving rubble by hand.
Financial markets also reacted to the disaster. Reuters reported that Latin American equities, measured by the MSCI index, slid about 0.26% and a currencies gauge remained flat. Even the market’s flinch had its own cold arithmetic. Buildings fell, families searched, airports shut down, and traders measured the shock in fractions.
Small earthquakes, known as temblores, are common in central and western Colombia, but those above 6.0 magnitude are rare. In 1999, a 6.2 magnitude quake near the city of Armenia killed more than 1,100 people. Monday’s quake hit harder than the usual tremors and left the poorest region carrying the heaviest burden, while officials, foreign governments and markets all moved to narrate the disaster after the fact.