CALI/PEREIRA, Colombia, Aug 14 — Hopes of finding more survivors of the powerful earthquake that rocked Colombia early this week were fading yesterday as rescue workers narrowed their searches, while families in the worst-hit areas waited for news of missing relatives.
In Cali, the country's third-largest city, crews shifted from search-and-rescue operations to debris removal at most sites, a sign that the disaster response was entering a grimmer phase after the crucial first 72 hours.
"Unfortunately, we are reaching a point where the likelihood of finding survivors is dwindling, but our mission is to keep searching and find all those people who are reported missing," David Tamayo, head of Colombia's National Unit for Disaster Risk Management, said yesterday evening.
The magnitude-7.4 earthquake struck shortly after 7.30 am on Monday, toppling apartment blocks, damaging homes, schools and hospitals, and sending residents into the streets across western Colombia, home to the country's coffee farms.
At least 281 people were killed — many in Cali and Pereira, a city in the coffee region — and more than 3,900 injured, according to government data. The data showed 379 people were still reported missing.
In Pereira, Enrique Marin said he drove more than 10 hours from Bogota after receiving a call from a friend who told him his mother was trapped beneath the rubble of her home.
"My mother was rescued six hours after the earthquake. They pulled her out with vital signs, but she died on the way to the hospital," Marin said as he stood in front of the debris, clutching a bicycle from his childhood — the only item he said he was able to recover from the house.
He said his mother was found in her pyjamas with the house keys still in her hand.
At the Torres del Limonar residential complex in southern Cali, volunteers worked frantically in bucket brigades as a coordinator with a megaphone reminded them of the limited time and scolded two volunteers who approached without helmets.
Elsewhere in the rubble, crews carefully passed down gas tanks removed from the debris as workers called for silence during more delicate rescue operations.
Monica Mina, a 38-year-old restaurant owner, said she and other chefs in the city were working almost around the clock to distribute about 1,000 meals a day — including scrambled eggs and pork — to rescuers, medics and volunteers.
Some 133km north, at Roldanillo Cemetery, Colombia's disappeared persons unit said it was investigating camouflage-clad human remains exposed by the earthquake.
First major test for new Colombian government
Outside major cities, rescue groups said smaller towns and communities were still struggling with little or no response from the Colombian government.
Nazly Lozano, the International Rescue Committee's programme assistant in the port city of Buenaventura, northwest of Cali, said rescue workers had not reached some stricken areas until Wednesday night, leaving locals to dig through the rubble with their bare hands in a desperate search for survivors.
IRC workers said some neighbourhoods in Buenaventura remained inaccessible because of armed groups, some of which seized food donations and vowed to distribute the supplies themselves.
Residents still lacked basic services such as water, gas and electricity, the IRC workers said.
More than 150 aftershocks have been recorded since Monday, adding to the risks facing rescue workers combing through the debris as well as people left homeless by the initial quake, one of the strongest felt in Colombia in several decades.
The government has estimated that the earthquake destroyed more than 10,500 homes.
President Abelardo De La Espriella, who took office just days before the disaster, said on Wednesday he would declare an economic emergency and create a reconstruction fund to channel domestic and international aid towards rebuilding hospitals, schools, homes and infrastructure.
The disaster is shaping up as the first major test for the conservative president, who campaigned on cutting public spending and now faces the task of financing relief and reconstruction while demonstrating that his government can manage a national crisis.
Colombian officials have also pushed back against criticism over the handling of foreign assistance, saying the government has not rejected any country's offer but will only accept international search-and-rescue teams that meet recognised certification standards.
