The countdown is on in Colombia to find survivors of the most powerful earthquake of the last decade, which on Monday August 10 left at least 111 dead, 87 injured and destroyed dozens of buildings. The earthquake, with a magnitude of 7.4, occurred early in the morning in the department of Choco, a poor region on the Pacific coast, plunging the main cities in the west of the country into panic.
“I ran out into the street, with nothing, there were hundreds of people” including some praying, testified Julian Peña, dentist from Quibdo, the capital of Choco (west).
In Cali (southwest), one of the most affected cities, professional and improvised rescuers removed the rubble with their bare hands in search of signs of life. Nelson Moreno came to save a friend trapped under two five-story towers. Her friend’s father and the young woman’s baby were found, injured but alive. “Now we need flashlights and glasses” because of the dust, to continue night operations, he said, surrounded by hundreds of volunteers. These rescuers form human chains to evacuate the rubble from the building, with picks and rudimentary tools.
A woman taken out of the rubble is transported by rescuers on a stretcher, after a powerful earthquake, in Cali, Colombia on August 10, 2026. © Joaquin Sarmiento, AFP
Six airports damaged
President Abelardo de la Espriella, in office for only three days, declared a state of emergency and pledged to carry out a coordinated rescue operation. By the end of the afternoon, 47 aftershocks had been recorded, according to the Colombian geological service. The president gave a provisional assessment at the national level, citing 111 dead, 87 injured, some 1,500 homes damaged and 61 buildings collapsed. Six airports in the west of the country saw their infrastructure damaged and had to interrupt commercial flights.
The damage suffered by the Manizales Cathedral, after the earthquake in Colombia, August 10, 2026. © Andres Valencia, AFP
The epicenter was recorded near San José del Palmar, in Choco, a department which has 13 deaths so far. Wilmer Cuesta, a law student who came to help the buried people, said he saw “people coming out naked, throwing themselves from the top of their house, from the second floor, desperate people.”
Abelardo de la Espriella visited the department of Choco during the day and announced that he would travel in the coming hours to Cali, the third city in the country.
Faced with the magnitude of the earthquake, messages of solidarity poured in from all over the world. Several Latin American countries, as well as Israel, Spain and France, have expressed their support. The European Union announced that it had mobilized its Copernicus satellite service to facilitate relief operations. The United States, allies of the new government, offered $15.5 million in aid to deal with the emergency.
Message of support from Shakira
The singer Shakira, for her part, sent in a message on
People stand near a pile of debris after a powerful earthquake in Manizales, Colombia, August 10, 2026. © Giovanny Galvez, AFP
In Pereira, in the tourist “coffee region” already hit by an earthquake which killed nearly 1,200 people in 1999, dozens of deaths have been recorded. The city “is going through a historic, difficult situation (…) certain hospitals have been overwhelmed by demand,” Mayor Mauricio Salazar told the press, in an emotional voice.
In the neighboring town of Manizales, about fifty kilometers away, one of the towers of the cathedral fell.
In Cali, at least 20 buildings collapsed, according to authorities. “Many people came with equipment, food, to help the firefighters,” says Andrés Felipe Mejia, volunteer rescuer.
A woman walks through the rubble in Pereira, Colombia, after a strong earthquake on August 10, 2026. © Jaime Saldarriaga, AFP
In the capital Bogota, residents, sometimes still in their pajamas, briefly evacuated their building Monday morning before returning to their homes, with no major damage having been reported.
The earthquake was felt as far away as Ecuador, Panama and Venezuela, itself hit on June 24 by a double earthquake of magnitude 7.2 and 7.5 that left more than 6,000 dead. These countries are located on the Pacific Ring of Fire, an area of high seismic and volcanic activity due to the movements of tectonic plates, notably the Nazca plate and the Caribbean plate which dive under the South American plate.
With AFP
