Key events
Closing summary
We’re about to wrap up this live coverage of Colombia’s devastating earthquake but you can read an updated full report here – and below is a recap of the day’s news. It’s now a little after midnight local time.
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Search and rescue efforts were under way early on Tuesday in dozens of cities and towns in western Colombia after a powerful earthquake struck the region.
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At least 110 people were killed after the 7.4-magnitude quake struck on Monday morning local time, toppling buildings, damaging hospitals and infrastructure and trapping people beneath the rubble in Colombia’s strongest earthquake this century.
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More than 2,700 people had been reported missing by Monday night.
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New president Abelardo de la Espriella – sworn in just days earlier – declared a state of emergency and said in an address to the nation that his government had deployed all of its capabilities “to protect lives, assist affected communities and deliver aid wherever it is needed”.
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“The first priority is rescuing the people trapped under the rubble,” de la Espriella said after about 1,600 buildings had been damaged, including at least 61 that completely collapsed.
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Colombian volunteers and rescuers were sifting through rubble into Monday evening searching for survivors. A person among those who joined a make-shift crew in Cali – western Colombia’s largest city – said: “We are trying to get everyone out alive.”
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Local officials confirmed deaths across several regions, including the coffee region of Risaralda. Among the worst-hit areas was the city of Pereira, with at least 40 deaths reported; the department of Chocó, with at least 12; and the neighbouring Valle del Cauca department with at least 27, including 15 in Cali, Colombia’s third most populous city.
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The quake hit the remote Chocó region about 7.30am local time and was felt as far as Bogotá, the national capital, about 400km (250 miles) away, as well as in neighbouring countries Ecuador, Venezuela and Panama. The epicentre was in San Jose Del Palmar, a community of about 4,800 people, and the initial quake was followed by two aftershocks of 2.8 and 4.8 magnitude.
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Authorities in the cities of Cali, Armenia and Manizales announced curfews in the aftermath of the quake, with Cali’s mayor saying threats of looting had forced him to deploy police and military personnel to the streets.
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The US state department announced it would provide $15.5m for emergency shelter, food and other aid. Governments across Latin America also offered help.
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The earthquake comes less than two months after back-to-back quakes devastated parts of Venezuela, killing more than 6,100 people.
Amid the quake devastation in western Colombia, little is known about the extent of the damage in Chocó, a remote region where officials reported dozens of injured people and damaged buildings but few other details.
Phone signals were out in many parts of the region’s capital, Quibdo. The town closest to the earthquake’s epicentre, San Jose del Palmar, has no airport and is located on top of a mountain ridge along a highway linking the cities of Cali and Pereira.
In Pereira, further south in the coffee-producing mountains of Colombia, photos and videos on local media showed pieces of the airport ceiling falling onto travellers taking shelter and screaming, the Associated Press reports.
People ran through rubble and plumes of dust, and residents said collapsed stores, residential buildings and homes lined the city.
Pereira mayor Mauricio Salazar told a local radio station there were at least 15 collapsed buildings where people were feared trapped.
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.
Authorities said flights were suspended at the airports in Manizales, Quibdo, Armenia, Cartago, Buenaventura and Pereira as they assessed damage.
It is now 11pm on Monday in Colombia, almost 16 hours after the 7.4-magnitude earthquake struck at 7.34am.
The Colombian Geological Service said by late Monday it had recorded 21 aftershocks, including a 2.8- and 4.8-magnitude aftershock. The service has warned additional tremors are likely.
As the nighttime search to find Colombian quake survivors continues, a Cali resident and rescue volunteer has been quoted as saying her group helped seven people out of a fallen building but there were still four people and a dog trapped underneath.
“A moment ago there was scratching but now we can’t hear anything,” Carmen Yasmin Garcia, 43, said. “We still have faith that the dog is alive and we can get these people out.
The more people lending a hand the better.
Reuters also quotes Saul Paz, a resident of a Cali residential complex that partially collapsed, as saying he had been in the dining room with his son and wife when the shaking began.
“I think if it had lasted five seconds more there would be nothing left,” the 69-year-old said.
There are people who went to bed last night with a house and a car and today they won’t have anything.
Authorities in the western Colombian cities of Cali, Armenia and Manizales have announced curfews in the aftermath of the quake, with Cali’s mayor saying threats of looting had forced him to deploy police and military personnel to the streets.
President Abelardo de la Espriella promised 1,000 additional security personnel for the city, the largest in western Colombia.
As night fell in Colombia, rescue workers and volunteers with headlamps have hurried to find people still trapped under rubble.
Video broadcast by Caracol Television showed a group of people pulling a small baby covered in dust from under a pile of debris. The six-month-old girl and her mother were rescued from under a five-story building in Cali, it reported.
Video from Cali also showed rescue workers rappelling people out from the windows of a local hospital, Reuters reports.
In the hard-hit city of Pereira, rescue workers told local TV they were in contact with a young boy trapped under a bakery, and crane operators were working to remove badly damaged parts of buildings.
Cali authorities said the Petronio Alvarez festival, an annual celebration of Pacific music which was due to start on Wednesday, has been postponed.
Colombia’s earthquake struck just three days after Abelardo de la Espriella was sworn in as president, thrusting his new administration into its first major crisis, with memories still fresh of devastating twin earthquakes in neighbouring Venezuela in June.
“The national government has all of its capabilities deployed to protect lives, assist affected communities and deliver aid wherever it is needed,” he said in a national address about 1pm local time on Monday, declaring a national state of emergency and giving a death toll of 111.
The first priority is rescuing the people trapped under the rubble.
De la Espriella visited Quibdo, the capital of coastal Chocó province, where he promised rent subsidies for those who had lost homes, and then travelled to Cali, western Colombia’s largest city, Reuters reports.
He had been expected to give an updated national death toll on Monday evening but only gave figures for Valle del Cauca province, where Cali is located, saying 35 people had died there and 700 been injured.
Some local media have cited a national total of 132 deaths, though the figure’s origin is unclear.
Rescuers race to find quake survivors under building rubble
Colombian volunteers and rescuers have been sifting through rubble with bare hands and buckets into Monday evening, hunting for survivors after the huge quake in the country’s west that left at least 111 people dead.
Colombia’s new president, Abelardo de la Espriella, declared a state of emergency and vowed a concerted rescue effort.
In the city of Cali, volunteers quickly went to work with picks, basic tools and their own hands to try to find survivors.
Andres Felipe Mejia was among those who joined a make-shift crew, telling Agence France-Presse:
We are trying to get everyone out alive. One of the rescuers asked anyone trapped to whistle, and someone whistled back.
“They pulled out a man and a baby, but the wife is still in there,” he said near a collapsed multi-story building.
Rescuers formed human chains to remove bricks and masonry, stopping every few minutes to listen for signs of life from those trapped below.
Mejia said:
A lot of people have come, with supplies, with food, helping the firefighters, helping the people.
Hospitals in five Colombian cities were put on red alert on Monday and a nighttime curfew was declared in Cali, according to local authorities. At least six local airports suspended operations, the civil aeronautics agency said.
The quake was felt across Colombia including Bogotá, the capital, where crowds of people rushed out into the street in their pyjamas.
More reports are emerging of the chaotic scenes that followed the earthquake that struck several cities across Colombia’s picturesque coffee region and Pacific, sending panicked residents on to the streets and damaging at least 1,500 buildings.
“People ran out naked, people jumped from the second floor of their homes” Wilmer Cuesta, a law student in Quibdo, told Agence France-Presse, recounting violent shaking.
Dentist Julian Pena was at home in Quibdo when he felt “very, very strong” shaking.
“People were praying in the street. It was overwhelming,” he told AFP. “I ran outside carrying nothing and found hundreds of people there.”
There are many buildings with gaps, with cracks. There are others that have completely collapsed.
There were scenes of destruction in several cities, with furniture and fabrics sandwiched between concrete, walls and floors tossed into irregular angles, and cabling strewn across roads.
Rescuers search for quake victims – latest pictures
Here are some of the latest images coming in from western Colombia as searches continue through the rubble of damaged buildings after the 7.4-magnitude earthquake – the country’s strongest recorded this century.
Colombian president says aid allocated to quake victims
Colombia’s president says the national government “stands with the people of Chocó” and that “immediate economic resources and humanitarian aid have already been allocated to support the more than 1,400 affected families and individuals”.
Abelardo de la Espriella – facing his first major crisis as president – also said on X that injured people and those requiring priority medical attention were being transferred to Medellín “with all available hospital capacity”.
His post said (in a translation):
Additionally, temporary rental subsidies will be implemented for families whose homes were damaged.
Our priority is and will continue to be the lives and well-being of the affected communities.
De la Espriella finished his post:
¡Firme por la Patria!” (Steadfast for the Homeland)
US pledges $15.5m for Colombia quake relief
The US has announced $15.5m in earthquake aid for Colombia and said it is ready to support the new president’s response.
The state department said on social media the funding would go to “emergency shelter, food, protection and earthquake assessments”.
The post said:
We are united in prayer with the Colombian people and stand ready to support President [Abelardo de la Espriella] and his government as they assess the needs on the ground.
At the weekend the state department announced the Trump administration would provide $1bn in security assistance to the government of the new rightwing president, who used his inaugural speech to pledge a fight against drug trafficking as well as austerity measures to restore economic confidence.
Further to the last post: Mauricio Andrade, a firefighter in Colombia’s third most populous city of Cali, said his team had rescued two adult women and two children from a collapsed building.
As he spoke, his team was preparing to rescue more people from the rubble.
“They are alive,” he told Reuters. “We are making space so we can free them and get them out.”
Juan Carlos Osorio told Caracol Television that the collapse of one building “sounded like a bomb”, as he helped remove debris from a collapsed structure in Cali.
All of us neighbours are working together, forming human chains. We need heavy equipment. There are many people trapped.
Reports from Chocó, near the epicentre of the quake, have been slowed by communications outages, with some areas still lacking mobile phone service hours after the earthquake.
Governor Nubia Carolina Cordoba said 12 people had been killed and 84 injured in the largely rural area.
The quake’s heaviest casualties appeared to be concentrated in Risaralda, part of Colombia’s coffee-growing region. Pereira, the department’s capital, suffered extensive damage, with rescue workers continuing to search collapsed buildings for survivors.
A four-story building crumbled in Pereira during the quake, according to Reuters-verified video, while footage from Manizales showed one of the side towers of the city’s landmark neo-Gothic cathedral collapsing and scattering debris onto nearby streets.
Reuters footage showed rescue workers, police and volunteers shovelling debris by hand and loading rubble into trucks as they searched for trapped survivors. Other footage showed damage to residential towers and emergency-service facilities, with debris crashing onto ambulances parked below.
Colombia’s Pacific region around the epicentre of the earthquake lies along the Ring of Fire, the line of seismic faults encircling the Pacific Ocean where most of the world’s quakes occur.
The Pacific, particularly the Chocó region where the quake hit, is one of Colombia’s poorest and is nestled in dense jungle. Much of the region is reachable only by boat or plane, which may pose a problem for authorities in assessing the wider toll, as the AP reports.
Northwestern University seismologist Suzan van der Lee said the quake’s powerful magnitude, inland location and strike-slip motion may have amplified damage in populated valleys despite its considerable depth.
“This one was far below the crust, and in theory it shouldn’t cause as much shaking,” she said, quoted by Reuters. “At this magnitude, it did actually cause a lot of shaking.”
The Colombia earthquake has left many people trapped under the debris of damaged buildings as their loved ones and rescue workers search through the rubble.
Search teams and civilians picked through the remains of destroyed buildings in the country’s third-largest city, Cali, passing large pieces of concrete and other rubble down a long line of volunteers.
“Our building has basically been left in ruins, and the building next to ours? Completely collapsed,” said Álvaro López, who cradled his dog as he watched the search.
The desperate scene recalled the searches still ongoing in neighbouring Venezuela weeks after that country was devastated by back-to-back quakes in June, the Associated Press reports.
Besides Cali, the quake-ravaged cities across western Colombia including Pereira, Quibdo and Manizales and was felt in neighboring Ecuador and Panama.
The day so far
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At least 111 have died and 87 people injured after dozens of buildings collapsed following a 7.4 magnitude earthquake that struck western Colombia on Monday morning – the largest to hit the country so far this century. After declaring a state of national disaster, Colombia’s new president, Abelardo de la Espriella, said in an address to the nation that his government had deployed all of its capabilities “to protect lives, assist affected communities and deliver aid wherever it is needed”. “The first priority is rescuing the people trapped under the rubble,” he said after around 1,600 buildings had been damaged, including at least 61 that completely collapsed.
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The president declared an emergency to expedite funding for the quake recovery while saying 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.
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The quake hit the remote Chocó region around 7.30am local time on Monday morning and was felt as far as the capital Bogotá (250 miles away), as well as neighbouring countries Ecuador, Venezuela and Panama. The epicentre was in San Jose Del Palmar, a community of about 4,800 people, and the initial quake was followed by two 2.8 and 4.8 magnitude aftershocks.
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Local officials confirmed deaths across several regions, including the coffee region of Risaralda and in Valle del Cauca, while rescue teams race to free people trapped under debris of collapsed buildings. Among the worst-hit areas was the city of Pereira, where at least 40 people have been killed, according to the mayor. In the department of Chocó, at least 12 people were killed, according to the local governor there, and at least 27 deaths have been reported in the neighbouring Valle del Cauca department, including at least three children and including 15 people in Cali, Colombia’s third-largest city.
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The United States and countries across Europe and Latin America offered support. The Trump administration is “closely monitoring” the earthquake, US secretary of state Marco Rubio said earlier, adding that Washington “stands ready to support” the people and the pro-Trump government. Other countries including Ecuador, France, Mexico and Brazil also offered support.
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It all comes less than two months after two earthquakes devastated parts of Venezuela, killing more than 6,100 people.
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