At least 111 people were killed Monday in the 7.4-magnitude earthquake that shook western Colombia, the country’s newly inaugurated president, Abelardo De La Espriella, said in the afternoon.
De La Espriella said he has declared a national disaster to allow for the mobilization and coordination of emergency efforts. According to the president, more than 1,600 buildings were damaged by the morning quake.
Elected officials in the region have reported dozens of injuries, people trapped inside collapsed buildings and serious structural damage throughout the region.
The quake’s epicenter was reported in the municipality of San José del Palmar in the department of Chocó.
De La Espriella said in a post on X that he had ordered the “establishment of a Unified Command Post to coordinate the response to the damage and assist those affected.”
In Valle del Cauca, about 254 miles south of Chocó, Gov. Dilian Francisca Toro said “the situation is serious.”
She reported the deaths of 27 people across Valle del Cauca, including three children. Speaking from the University Hospital of the Valley, Toro said the facility suffered “structural collapses” and that rescue and evacuation operations were completed Monday.
Video from the location verified by NBC News shows medical staff dressed in white tending to infants in hospital bassinets outdoors. At least one medical professional was shown holding a baby in her arms.
In Chocó, Gov. Nubia Carolina Córdoba-Curi said on social media that injuries and serious damage to buildings have been reported in the capital city of Quibdó, about 188 miles northwest of the reported epicenter.
“We are already conducting a damage assessment to issue the first official report,” Córdoba-Curi wrote on X in Spanish.
As of 1:02 p.m., Córdoba-Curi reported 12 deaths and 84 people injured in Chocó.
In Pereira, a city in Colombia’s coffee-growing region, Mayor Mauricio Salazar said 18 people had died. In nearby Manizales, Mayor Jorge Eduardo Rojas said two people were killed.
Alejandro Eder, the mayor of Cali, said that at least 20 buildings had collapsed in the city and some had “people trapped inside.” Emergency response teams have set up tents in the area to coordinate rescue efforts, Eder added.
Cali is Colombia’s third-largest city. Sunday was the beginning of a weeklong festival celebrating the region’s Afro-Pacific culture, which brings hundreds of thousands of tourists to the city.
Cali resident Luis Angel Sarria told NBC News he strongly felt the earthquake there.
“There are many damaged buildings, collapsed buildings, people trapped and fatalities; the quake felt here was very severe,” Sarria, a taxi driver, said in Spanish. “What has happened here in my country has been very hard and very sad.”
While Sarria and his immediate family are safe, he said, “We are saddened by the loss of life.”
In Cali, rescue teams and volunteers began clearing rubble as they searched for survivors trapped beneath some of the collapsed buildings.
In Jamundí, about 15 miles south of Cali, Maria Alejandra Soto Zea was inside her apartment with her 2-year-old son when she felt the earthquake. Its intensity grew quickly, she said, leaving her unable to quickly evacuate her home.
As she sought the exit, Soto Zea said, the shaking was so intense that she made it only to the kitchen. There, she held on to the kitchen counter with all her strength while also carrying her toddler, she told NBC News in Spanish.
“Right now, I have back pain from the stress of the moment, from shouting, from gripping the counter so tightly and from the anguish of thinking I wouldn’t be able to get out of here with my son,” Soto Zea said.
When the trembling decreased, the 27-year-old mother took the stairs seven stories down with her young child in her arms and evacuated the building.
Worried about the aftershocks, Soto Zea began packing a few bags on Monday afternoon to stay with relatives elsewhere.
The Trump administration is committing $15.5 million to Colombia for emergency shelter, food, protection and other needs, the State Department said Monday on X.
It said the U.S. is ready to support De La Espriella and his government as they assess the country’s needs. “We are united in prayer with the Colombian people,” the State Department said.
The International Rescue Committee, a global nonprofit organization focused on providing aid during humanitarian crises, said in a statement that its staff near Chocó is reporting damage to hospitals and clinics.
It said its staff there is safe and that additional IRC resources are ready to deploy on an emergency basis as needed.
“Local communities were already facing armed conflict and high levels of poverty long before the ground began to shake. Chocó, at the epicenter of the quake, is the poorest region in the country,” said Nicole Kast, the organization’s director for Colombia, Venezuela and Ecuador. “We are deeply concerned that today’s natural disaster will make the needs on the ground even steeper as people lose access to health care and other essential services.”
According to Colombia’s civil aviation authority, airports in Pereira, Manizales, Quibdó, Armenia, Cartago and Buenaventura “have been affected.” Flights at these airports have been suspended “pending an assessment of structural damage to the facilities.”
José Gallegos was inside the airport in Pereira when the earthquake hit. In videos posted to his Instagram account, Gallegos can be seen hiding underneath a table as plumes of dust burst in the air and parts of the ceiling crashed into the ground.
“Everything fell apart in a second,” Gallegos, an influencer, told Noticias Telemundo Ahora in Spanish. He was recording a live video when disaster struck. Gallegos described seeing walls collapsing, trapping people underneath. “At that moment, I thought I was going to die,” he said.
Halley Sherwood, who lives in the city of Armenia along with her husband, said in a phone interview that some buildings collapsed and many more appear to have intense damage.
Water and wi-fi were cut off before returning within a few hours, she said.
“As of right now everyone is outside their homes waiting,” Sherwood said. “We were told there could be aftershocks.”
The damage in Armenia, part of the country’s coffee-growing region, has brought back painful memories for residents of a 6.1-magnitude earthquake that rocked the area in 1999, which caused nearly 1,200 deaths and left an estimated 250,000 homeless, according to the USGS.
“My husband and his family are all shook up, because last time it was really bad,” Sherwood said.
Less than an hour after the initial earthquake, an aftershock measured at magnitude 5.0 struck about 10 miles west of San José del Palmar, according to the U.S. Geological Survey. It wasn’t immediately clear if it caused damage or hampered rescue efforts.
The earthquake follows two back-to-back 7.2- and 7.5-magnitude earthquakes in Venezuela in late June. Those earthquakes destroyed hundreds of buildings and killed more than 6,000 people.
Soto Zea said that surviving Monday’s earthquake in Colombia after witnessing the devastation left behind in nearby Venezuela has left her feeling very nervous.
“It’s very overwhelming,” she said. “This shakes up your life because it leaves you thinking about how fragile life is.”
