Rescue efforts continued across western Colombia on Tuesday following a powerful 7.4-magnitude earthquake that struck the region on Monday, leaving at least 181 people dead and more than 1,300 injured. The tremor, the strongest in Colombia in a decade, caused extensive damage, including the collapse of at least 153 buildings.
The city of Cali, Colombia’s third-largest urban center and a cultural hub located approximately 100 miles south of the quake’s epicenter, experienced some of the heaviest destruction. Authorities reported at least 45 structures destroyed in the city alone. More than 230 individuals were believed to remain trapped under rubble as firefighters, paramedics, and aid groups worked through the day to locate survivors.
One of the most dramatic rescues involved 31-year-old biomedical engineer Diana Marcela Troncoso, who was found alive roughly 30 hours after the initial quake. She was pulled from the remains of a collapsed building by firefighters from Bogotá, the national capital. Cicero during her extraction, she remained weak but responsive, clinging to a rescuer’s arm. Relatives expressed relief that a health professional known for saving lives had in turn been saved.
National teams from Bogotá and other areas rushed to the scene to support local emergency personnel. The U.S. government announced it was deploying a disaster response team to aid Colombian authorities and has pledged $15.5 million toward emergency shelter, food assistance, and damage assessments. The United Nations and other international organizations have also committed resources to the relief effort.
Beyond Cali, other parts of Colombia were severely impacted by the earthquake. Cities in the coffee-growing region—including Pereira and Manizales—suffered significant damage along the western Andes, while remote areas in the Chocó department on the Pacific coast remained difficult to assess due to ongoing communication outages in several municipalities. Nubia Carolina Córdoba Curi, governor of Chocó, described the destruction as “truly massive” but noted that full evaluations were hindered by the lack of connectivity.
The earthquake struck just days after Abelardo De La Espriella took office as Colombia’s new president. De La Espriella, a lawyer with no prior political experience, pledged that victims would not be abandoned as his administration responded to the crisis. On Tuesday, he visited Pereira to meet with local officials and review the damage.
The response in Colombia contrasts with the aftermath of recent earthquakes in neighboring Venezuela, where a far deadlier series of quakes claimed at least 6,300 lives. In Venezuela, emergency services were limited by years of budget constraints and political challenges, leading to largely civilian-led rescue operations and widespread criticism of the government’s handling of the disaster.
In Colombia, official emergency services led rescue operations, with civilians assisting at the peripheries. Workers used heavy machinery to remove debris while coordinating efforts to locate survivors. At one collapsed residential building in Cali’s Tequendama neighborhood, first responders and volunteers formed human chains, hauling away rubble as they searched for a family believed trapped inside. The presence of survivors was indicated by faint cries, encouraging rescuers to continue efforts into the night.
Local residents have also contributed by distributing food and water to rescue workers on site, underscoring the communal support mobilized in the earthquake’s aftermath. Items recovered from the rubble—personal belongings such as photographs and children’s mementos—illustrated the profound disruption to everyday lives caused by the disaster.
As recovery operations advance, officials warned that casualty and damage figures are likely to increase once full communication is restored across affected areas. Meanwhile, the search for survivors remains urgent within the critical first 48 hours following the quake, as rescue crews race against time to save those still trapped beneath the debris.