“Everything collapsed, everything was swept away, everything was lost,” laments Filadelfia, a resident of Quibdo, after the 7.4 magnitude earthquake which hit Colombia on Monday, August 10. A wall of his house is split in two, which makes him fear a collapse. “With other neighbors, we are on the street, we sleep outside because we have nowhere to go,” she told France 24 in Spanish.
Filadelfia lives in the capital of the Choco department, a poor region on the Pacific coast, the epicenter of the earthquake. Single mother of two children – Valentina, ten years old, and Alexis, seventeen years old, her disabled eldest –, she shares her dismay: “Imagine the situation I am experiencing at the moment, it is something horrible, something which is not decided by anyone anyway, it is destiny, it is the will of God.”
Dozens of homes have been destroyed in the region, where emergency services are working to find victims, while the death toll is steadily rising. “We are mothers who raise our children alone, without a husband. We are fighting women and we have gone through a very hard, very difficult ordeal,” she says, while the members of her family, including seven children aged from nine months to 17 years, cannot return home and find themselves on the street.
In addition to the material damage, Filadelfia also thinks of the families of the victims. “The earthquake was terrible. Many people lost their homes, others their loved ones. That’s the hardest thing, losing a child, a father, a mother, a nephew, a brother,” she adds.
The latest report shows at least 240 dead, hundreds injured, as well as 3,000 missing.
Difficult communication
The earthquake that struck Colombia on Monday was the country’s most powerful in the last decade. The new president Abelardo de la Espriella, in office for three days, immediately declared a state of emergency.
But the Choco department is experiencing “chronic” communication problems, explains Juan Carlos Barreto, president of Pastoral Social-Caritas Colombiana, a Catholic humanitarian association. Therefore, “the information is not easily accessible at the moment.”
“We know that some buildings have collapsed, that there are victims and that a census is underway in certain municipalities outside Quibdo,” he specifies.
Filadelfia confirms having a weak internet connection. She can only send voice messages on WhatsApp begging authorities to provide help: “There have been many disasters in Quibdo, we need you to come here.”
“Spirit of community”
Further south in the department, the small town of Union Panamericana no longer has access to electricity. The mayor, Geyson Copete, set up a makeshift system to organize operations and maintain communication with local and national authorities. He works out of a gas station equipped with a power plant and Starlink satellite internet.
“Our commune had never experienced such a situation before. We deplore the loss of three human lives in a hamlet called La Y,” he said.
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Cover image: A witness filmed the moment the earthquake of Monday August 10, 2026 hit Colombia. © @soy_gallego via Reuters
He estimates the number of collapsed houses at 120. “We have massive destruction of homes in all the municipalities”, but “people managed to evacuate from the start of the earthquake”, adds the mayor.
Residents who lost their homes can still count on “community spirit”. “Many of those who have lost everything are staying with friends or family,” he emphasizes, while others can go to reception centers in neighboring communities.
This article was translated by Éléonore Pointeau from the original in Spanish.
