Colombia scrambles to find survivors after deadly earthquake

At least 254 deaths have been reported so far as rescuers continue to sift through collapsed buildings in western Colombia.

xwhatsapp-strokecopylinkgoogleAdd Al Jazeera on GoogleinfoCali, Colombia – A day after a magnitude 7.4 earthquake shook western Colombia, rescue teams are frantically fighting through the rubble of collapsed buildings to find survivors and recover bodies.

The powerful quake has caused at least 254 deaths nationwide, most of them concentrated in the cities of Pereira and Cali, according to government figures.

“For me, the earthquake felt eternal,” recalled Luis Saenz, a 22-year-old journalism student from Cali.

Saenz was at home enjoying his morning coffee when the quake struck at 7:34am (12:34 GMT) on Monday. He remembers his cat darting under the bed, then chaos as his family fled into the street.

Some 5,000 homes suffered damage, according to the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, while dozens of buildings – many of them residential – collapsed entirely.

In Cali, Colombia’s third-largest city, at least 95 people died, and 45 structures have fully or partially collapsed, according to local government statistics.

“I never thought I would see my city like this,” resident Maria Isabel Cumbal said between sobs, as she watched rescue efforts unfold at the Vanessa Building in the south of the city.

The seven-storey residential apartment block was reduced to wreckage in Monday's earthquake.

Rescuers now wield hammers, shovels and heavy machinery in an attempt to pierce through thick slabs of concrete and rescue the estimated 20 people trapped underneath.

On and around the collapsed residence, hundreds of volunteers help to clear the rubble by forming a human chain to pass buckets from atop the mound of debris down to dump trucks.

Every so often, a rescuer will hold up a fist to call for silence, so that emergency responders can listen for signs of life.

When the building collapsed, it fell onto a neighbouring building that housed a nursery, according to multiple volunteers at the site.

“There are approximately 17 children trapped under the rubble,” explained Maximiliano Herrera, 32, a local volunteer coordinating rescue efforts.

The nursery was part of a nearby Adventist Church. Herrera, a member of the congregation, knows many of the families whose children are stuck under the rubble.

“It’s very sad to know that the kids of friends and acquaintances are most likely under here,” Herrera told Al Jazeera.

He added that two children, Samuel and Sara, have shown signs of life but are located “in the most out-of-reach corner of the entire site".

Some onlookers wait for news about loved ones who were at home when the Vanessa Building crumbled.

Samir Valencia lived in the apartment block until 2022, when he moved down the road. Many of his former neighbours remain missing.

Valencia tried to help clear the debris, but he found it too painful to see his old home in ruin.

“I wanted to stay, but no, I couldn't,” said Valencia, as he watched a mobile phone video he took last week from a friend's apartment inside the Vanessa Building. “I was helping, but I couldn't continue. Believe me, my heart just couldn't take it.”

Valencia’s new home was also severely damaged by the earthquake. Thick cracks now creep across the facade of his apartment block, and large chunks of concrete lie at the foot of the building.

His neighbours continue to make risky expeditions into their flats to retrieve their valuables. When an aftershock triggered an earthquake siren on Tuesday morning, several residents ran out of the tottering apartment block, at least three cradling flatscreen TVs.

Such retrieval missions come amid fears of looting in a city with one of the country’s highest crime rates.

Prior to the earthquake, officials estimated that Cali, the capital of the Valle de Cauca province, accounted for more than 8 percent of the homicides in Colombia, with 1,067 recorded last year.

Fearing an uptick in crime, the mayor of Cali, Alejandro Eder, announced the “militarisation” of the city on Monday, imposing a curfew from 8pm to 6am – with the exception of rescue teams, medical staff and other essential workers.

Many rescuers have not slept since the earthquake struck, working through the night to try to save lives.

“We haven’t stopped. We’ve been doing this all night,” Cristian Nieves, a weary volunteer who sat perched on a paint bucket, said on Tuesday morning.

Local authorities have received support from their counterparts in Colombia’s capital, Bogota, and its second-largest city, Medellin, with firefighters and rescue teams arriving from major metropolises.

Much of the aid has also come from citizens and private companies, according to organisers on the ground.

All the heavy yellow machinery – including the cranes and diggers – operating at the Vanessa Building were donated by private construction firms, according to Yhoshua Jafet Arles, who works with the mayor’s office.

The crisis represents the first major test for President Abelardo de la Espriella, who was inaugurated on Friday in Cali.

De la Espriella chose the city for his oath of office as a sign of his commitment to fighting crime in Colombia. Normally, inaugurations take place in Bogota.

Since Monday's earthquakes, the right-wing leader has pledged support for survivors and met with local leaders in Cali and Quibdo, the capital of the department of Choco.

But people in hard-hit cities like Buenaventura – which is historically more impoverished than Cali and Pereira – have said they feel neglected by the government.

Valencia moved to Cali from Buenaventura, and he worries government assistance will not reach his hometown.

“We've always been forgotten in Buenaventura,” said the 42-year-old. “All the help is centred around the city of Manizales, in Armenia and Bogota, which were hardly affected at all.”

Others have said the government response has been disorganised, with multiple agencies responding to the crisis without centralised leadership.

“It's not a lack of support. It's a lack of organisation. Because it's unbelievable that such a large city has no control over its agencies,” said Herrera.

But for now, residents are most concerned about saving lives. Saenz, the journalism student, was among the survivors donning a hard hat and face mask to sift through the destruction in Cali.

“We’re all tired and everything, but we’re trying to keep going,” said Saenz.