The Colombian Association of Capital Cities reports a provisional toll of at least 132 dead and 570 injured in the departments hit by Monday’s 7.4-magnitude earthquake -and its subsequent aftershocks-.
Cauca and Risaralda, located to the west of the so-called Coffee Axis, are the regions with the highest number of victims, according to the newspaper “El Espectador”, with at least 60 and 15 deaths respectively, plus around 13 in Chocó. Other affected regions include Caldas and Quindío.
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The epicentre was in San José del Palmar, in the south-east of Chocó, bordering Valle del Cauca and Risaralda and roughly equidistant from the cities of Cali and Medellín, with the former suffering the most damage to its infrastructure. Seismographs indicate that the natural disaster originated within the Nazca plate, at a depth of around 103 kilometres. This plate sinks beneath the South American plate that forms the Andes mountain range, causing friction and events of this kind.
Abelardo de la Espriella, who only recently took office as president of Colombia, travelled on Monday afternoon to Quibdó, capital of the department of Chocó, and later to Cali. As part of the reinforcement of emergency efforts, the latter city will receive 60 rescue workers from Bogotá and a further 32 members of the armed forces.
The far-right leader has announced that government representatives will head the unified command posts in the affected areas, with the departments ceding their powers on the matter. “I don’t want anyone going off on their own”, said the president, who will travel to the Coffee Axis in the coming days. “Information will come from the Office of the President of the Republic; from no other body of the Colombian state“.
Cali and Pereira impose a curfew
The capital of Valle del Cauca has imposed a curfew between 20:00 on Monday and 6:00 on Tuesday and ordered the militarisation of the city in response to the emergency, which has left numerous structures damaged in Cali.
Mayor Alejandro Eder has justified the move as a way to allow relief agencies to focus their efforts on searching for and rescuing those people who may still be trapped under the rubble. “We are facing threats of looting, which is why I have ordered the curfew and the militarisation of Cali”, Eder said, calling on citizens to report any attempted looting or incidents that threaten public safety.
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His counterpart in the Colombian city of Pereira, Mauricio Salazar, also declared a curfew on Monday to prevent looting. “As of today at 18:00 we have imposed a curfew until 5:00 to protect businesses in the city. This curfew will apply in the city centre, in Comuna Universidad and in the Cuba subcentre”, explained the mayor of the departmental capital of Risaralda.
In Caldas, governor Henry Gutiérrez Angel has likewise opted to impose a curfew to prevent looting and protect the population.
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At the onset of the earthquake, this area suffered a blackout affecting electricity and mobile phone coverage. Up to six airports in the west of the country (Pereira, Manizales, Quibdó, Armenia, Cartago and Buenaventura) still have operations suspended. The tremor was felt in neighbouring countries far from the epicentre, such as Ecuador and Panama.
From Mexico, President Claudia Sheinbaum has expressed her solidarity with Colombia and said her country is ready to provide whatever support is needed in the emergency. Mexican media report that the Morena leader has made available to the Colombian authorities any assistance they may require.
Among those sending messages is María Corina Machado, who has conveyed her solidarity with those affected and underlined Venezuelans’ experience of this type of disaster. “We know from first-hand experience how vital international solidarity is in the face of a tragedy of this magnitude”, wrote the opposition leader ‘de facto’ in exile. This earthquake follows two consecutive quakes of magnitudes 7.2 and 7.5 off the Venezuelan coast at the end of June. Those quakes destroyed hundreds of buildings and claimed the lives of more than 5,000 people.
From Spain, Pedro Sánchez has also expressed his solidarity with the country and offered whatever assistance is needed (source in Spanish). For the time being, there are no reports of Spanish nationals among the fatalities, although the tally remains preliminary.
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