Search operations for survivors in Colombia reached a decisive phase on Wednesday August 12, after the powerful earthquake which struck the west of the country on Monday, leaving 265 dead and hundreds missing.
The 7.4 magnitude earthquake, with an epicenter located in the poor department of Choco, on the Pacific coast, is the deadliest of the century in Colombia. It hit many western cities, including Cali, the third largest in the country, and Pereira in the “coffee region”.
On Wednesday, in Pereira, rescuers focused their efforts on a collapsed bakery from which they hoped to extract alive a street vendor, trapped under the rubble since the earthquake. They located it using devices capable of detecting vibrations. “We are told it could be him, we wait with emotion,” says his 16-year-old niece, Sara Loaiza. “As long as it’s him, that he’s alive,” she said.
See alsoThe moment the earthquake hits Colombia filmed by a witness
AFP journalists noted that the man seemed to respond when rescue teams asked him to strike twice, then three, from the chasm where he was, provoking applause from the crowd present.
More than 11,000 homes were destroyed
According to experts, the critical time to find survivors is 72 hours. A deadline which expires Thursday morning. “We are entering the final phase of the first 72 hours,” said Cali Mayor Alejandro Eder on Wednesday morning. “That doesn’t mean there won’t be survivors afterwards, but it will be more difficult,” he said.
“These are critical hours because two days have already passed,” Julio César Pineda, a 67-year-old volunteer rescuer, told AFP. However, he remains hopeful. “I know that today and tomorrow we will get people out alive” from the rubble.
In Cali and Pereira, the two towns most affected by the disaster, rescue teams and volunteers were preparing to work for a third night in a row, with their bare hands or with cranes and sniffer dogs, stopping at regular intervals to try to detect possible signs of life.
President Abelardo de la Espriella, who took office last week, communicated a new report at the end of the afternoon, citing 265 dead, nearly 3,500 injured and 500 missing. More than 11,000 homes were destroyed in the disaster and thousands of families were left homeless.
An aid fund for earthquake victims
The hard-right leader declared three days of national mourning “in tribute to all those who died”, as well as the “economic emergency”, a measure which authorizes him to raise taxes and modify the budget without going through Parliament. He also announced the creation of a fund intended to help victims of the earthquake. “We will do whatever is necessary,” he promised.
Many residents have already spent two nights outside, either because their homes were damaged or for fear of aftershocks. In the mountainous town of El Cairo, some 250 km north of Cali, residents are traumatized. “People don’t want to go home, they don’t want to sleep, they don’t know what to do,” says Adriana Gonzalez, a 40-year-old cook. Mery Quintero, 51, saw her “livelihood” disappear with the earthquake. Her clothing store is covered in debris. “It’s very hard,” she admits.
In the Providencia district of Pereira, a city already hit by an earthquake which killed nearly 1,200 people in 1999, residents spent the day extracting furniture and personal effects from their ruined homes. Among them, lawyer Ana Paulina Crosthwaite, whose building was deemed dangerous after the earthquake. She says she is “in shock” in the face of this “new reality”. “We are not ready to tell our children that we must take what we can and start a new life,” she confided to AFP.
Many Colombians mobilized, bringing water and food to affected neighborhoods or lining up to donate blood.
With AFP
