Colombia quake claims 132, shuts 7 airports

At least 132 people are dead and a state of emergency has been declared after Colombia was struck by one of its largest earthquakes in years on Monday, reports BBC.

Emergency responders are racing to dig people out of the rubble. Among the collapsed structures were the pediatric and neonatal sections of a hospital in Cali. The government has declared a national disaster and deployed soldiers to the area.

Meanwhile, Colombia’s Civil Aviation Authority (Aerocivil) suspended flight operations at seven airports after this earthquake.

The seven affected airports are Matecaña International in Pereira, La Nubia in Manizales, El Edén in Armenia, El Caraño in Quibdó, Santa Ana in Cartago, Gerardo Tobar López in Buenaventura, and Alfonso Bonilla Aragón International in Cali. The Cali airport, which had around 150 flights scheduled for the day, was added to the closure list after Aerocivil reported it had also been affected, making it the largest airport shut so far. 

The death toll is likely to rise, with more feared trapped under collapsed buildings.The magnitude 7.4 quake struck at 7:34am local time at a depth of 103km in Chocó province, the country’s geological service said. It was felt across a vast area, stretching for hundreds of miles across western Colombia.

Many of the deaths have been concentrated in the city of Pereira, in Colombia’s coffee-growing region, with surrounding cities and the Valle del Cauca region also hit hard.

The epicentre of the quake was near the village of San José del Palmar, in Chocó province, but local mayor León Fabio Marín Moncada said that there had miraculously been no deaths or injuries despite the roads in and out being damaged.
At least 570 people were injured in the quakes, Colombia’s Association of Capital Cities wrote in a statement update on Monday.

About 55km from the epicentre of the earthquake, the city of Pereira saw some of the worst damage.Videos verified by the BBC show at least one building collapsing in Plaza Bolívar, the city’s main square, with scattered debris and dust across the open space where many people had gathered.