Catastrophic earthquake tests Colombia’s urban infrastructure and emergency response

A powerful magnitude 7.4 earthquake has struck western Colombia, causing widespread building collapse, damaging hospitals and airports, and triggering a national emergency. The death toll was still developing, with Reuters reporting at least 164 deaths in its latest update, while earlier reports placed the toll above 100. Rescue operations continued across Cali, Pereira, Manizales, Quibdo and surrounding areas as teams searched for people trapped beneath rubble.

The earthquake struck near San Jose del Palmar in Choco at a depth of around 103 to 107 km. Despite being relatively deep, the event produced damaging shaking across a large part of western Colombia. The Colombian Geological Service described it as the strongest earthquake recorded in the country this century, while authorities warned that aftershocks were likely.

Damage was especially severe in Pereira and Cali. Reuters reported collapsed buildings, hospital damage, airport closures and rescue teams working through the night. AP reported hundreds of damaged buildings and widespread destruction across several western cities, with many people still trapped under debris.

The immediate priority is search and rescue. Reports from Cali and Pereira described residents, firefighters, police and volunteers removing rubble by hand, while cranes were used where damaged structural elements created further collapse risk. In Cali, rescue teams reportedly pulled survivors from collapsed buildings, including children.

The earthquake also disrupted transport and emergency access. Colombia’s civil aviation authority suspended operations at several regional airports, including Pereira, Manizales, Quibdo, Armenia, Cartago and Buenaventura, while engineers carried out structural inspections. These airport closures show how earthquake damage can quickly affect the movement of rescue teams, supplies and medical support.

Hospitals were also affected. Footage and reports described patients being moved or rescued from damaged medical facilities, underlining a familiar lesson from major earthquakes: hospitals must not only survive shaking, they must remain functional immediately afterward.

Early reports point to extensive damage in older and vulnerable structures, although detailed engineering assessments will be needed before the full causes are known. Possible contributing factors include poor structural detailing, weak masonry, irregular layouts, ageing concrete, soft-storey behaviour and buildings modified over time without proper seismic evaluation.

Local site conditions may also have played a role. Even when an earthquake is deep, shaking can be amplified in populated valleys or soft ground deposits. Colombia’s complex tectonic setting, located along the Pacific Ring of Fire and influenced by interacting plates, makes seismic behaviour difficult to generalise.

The next phase is critical. Rapid safety tagging, hospital inspections, airport checks, bridge assessments and aftershock risk evaluation must happen before damaged buildings are reoccupied. The disaster also reinforces the need for code compliance, seismic retrofitting and better assessment of older building stock.

Colombia’s 1999 Armenia earthquake already showed how destructive seismic events can be in the coffee region. This latest earthquake is another reminder that resilience depends not only on emergency response, but on the structural quality of everyday buildings before the shaking begins.