Colombia Earthquake Death Toll Climbs to 281 as Critical Rescue Window Narrows

Colombia’s death toll from Monday’s 7.4 magnitude earthquake climbed to at least 281 on Thursday, President Abelardo de la Espriella said, as rescue teams pressed into a third full day of searching through rubble with the critical window for finding survivors nearly closed.
De la Espriella said 3,971 people have been injured and 379 remain listed as missing, though the toll has shifted repeatedly since the quake struck, with different tallies from Colombian officials and regional authorities ranging from the low 200s to above 280 over the past two days, reflecting the difficulty of confirming casualties across a wide and heavily damaged area. David Santiago Tamayo, director general of Colombia’s Disaster Risk Management Unit, said more than 12,000 homes were destroyed and roughly 74,000 more damaged, with over 170 buildings collapsed outright.
The earthquake, centred near San Jose del Palmar in an underdeveloped part of western Colombia, caused its worst damage in Pereira and Cali, the country’s third largest city. Infrastructure losses have compounded the crisis: a pedestrian bridge collapsed, twenty road bridges were affected, more than two hundred roads were damaged, and five airports and forty four aqueducts sustained damage, according to De la Espriella.
Aid has begun arriving from regional partners, with rescue teams from Mexico and elsewhere assisting Colombian personnel in the search. A seismologist at the University of the Andes said the probability of another earthquake of similar magnitude striking the same area soon is low, though he cautioned that Colombia sits atop numerous active fault lines and further seismic activity cannot be ruled out. Authorities are also separately monitoring the Puracé volcano in the Cauca region for signs of increased activity.
The disaster represents an early and severe test for De la Espriella, who was inaugurated only days before the earthquake struck. Humanitarian groups say the destruction has deepened conditions in a region already coping with poverty and decades of displacement tied to Colombia’s long running internal conflict.