NewzBOGOTA, Colombia (AP) — A powerful 7.4 magnitude earthquake struck western Colombia on Monday, killing at least 79 people, trapping residents under debris of collapsed buildings and forcing people to evacuate their homes as far as the capital of Bogotá.The epicenter was in San Jose Del Palmar, a community of about 4,800 people in the Choco region about 250 miles (400 kilometers) west of Bogota, the U.S. Geological Survey and Colombia’s counterpart reported. The USGS said it struck at a depth of 66 miles (107 kilometers).
The quake also was felt in neighboring Ecuador and Panama, though minimal damage was reported there.Local officials confirmed that at least 40 people were killed in the Risaralda region, where the hard-hit city of Pereira is located, and 27 people in the Valle del Cauca region, where Colombia's third-biggest city, Cali, is located. At least three of those killed in Valle del Cauca were children, the governor said.Authorities also confirmed nine people were killed in Choco, two more in the Caldas region and a 73-year-old in the Antioquia region. Many more people across the country were injured.The quake left cities across the west of the country — Pereira, Quibdo, Cali and Manizales — ravaged.
Residents and search teams picked through the rubble of collapsed buildings amid concerns by authorities of aftershocks. Colombia's interior minister said more than 20 municipalities across the country had been hit.Colombia’s Pacific region around the quake's epicenter lies along the “Ring of Fire”, the line of seismic faults encircling the Pacific Ocean where most of the world’s earthquakes occur. The Pacific, particularly the Choco region, is one of the poorest regions in the country.
Nestled in the dense jungle, much of Choco is highly rural and only reachable by boat or plane, which may pose a problem for authorities in assessing the wider toll.Most powerful quake in the last decade, authorities sayJorge Moncayo, a 64-year-old taxi driver in Cali, said he saw plumes of dust shoot up across the city as buildings collapsed. Residents and rescue workers were searching the rubble for survivors.“My entire house shook. I've never lived through such a powerful earthquake,” he said.
“We're thanking God we're alive.”Colombia's Geological Service said Monday that it had been “the highest magnitude earthquake registered in Colombia in the last decade” and tha… Authorities also reported that flights were suspended in the airports of Manizales, Quibdo, Armenia, Cartago, Buenaventura and Pereira.The earthquakes left many in the Andean nation unnerved after two back… Two people also died in the city of Manizales.At least three of those killed in Valle del Cauca were children, the governor said.The quake left cities across the west of the country — Pereira, Quibdo, Cali and Manizales — ravaged.
At least three killed in Valle del Cauca were children, the governor said.The quake left cities across the west of the country — Pereira, Quibdo, Cali and Manizales — ravaged. A mix of residents and search teams picked through the rubble of collapsed buildings amid concerns by authorities of aftershocks. At the same time the quake brought down buildings in Colombia, desperate families in Venezuela continued to search the ruins for the bodies of their loved ones.In Pereira, photos and videos published by local media showed pieces of th…
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