Earthquake in Colombia: 281 dead, 379 missing and over twelve thousand houses destroyed

The toll of the earthquake that struck western Colombia on Monday, August 10, shortly after 7:30 a.m. local time, was updated on Thursday, August 13, by President Abelardo de la Espriella: 281 dead, 3,971 injured and 379 missing (ABC News, France 24). The quake measured magnitude 7.4.

The number of missing is what weighs most heavily on the coming hours: on Wednesday search operations entered the so-called final phase, after the expiry of the first seventy-two hours considered critical for finding survivors under the rubble.

Damage to infrastructure

Over twelve thousand homes were destroyed and more than seventy-four thousand damaged: the figures were released by David Santiago Tamayo, head of the Risk Management Unit (ABC News). The tally of affected networks is equally extensive.

Damaged infrastructure	Number
Roads	over 200
Road bridges	20
Airports	5
Aqueducts	44
Homes destroyed	over 12,000
Homes damaged	over 74,000

The forty-four aqueducts out of service and the five damaged airports describe the logistical difficulty of the phase now opening: assisting tens of thousands of homeless people requires drinking water and access routes, and these are exactly the two most compromised items.

The most exposed case concerns healthcare: in Cali, the partial collapse of the facade of a wing of the Valle University Hospital forced the urgent evacuation of patients. A hospital evacuated in a city hit by an earthquake removes care capacity precisely when demand is at its peak.

The political and international response

The Colombian government declared three days of national mourning. The United States, El Salvador and Mexico have mobilized rescue teams and humanitarian aid (UPI). The president summarized the scale of the emergency thus: “The impact is enormous and requires great determination and political will from the government.”

It is worth isolating the structure of the toll, as it helps in reading the updates to come. The 281 confirmed victims and the 379 missing are two distinct sets: the closing of the search phase tends to shift part of the second into the first, and a further possible increase in the death toll in the coming days would not necessarily indicate new events, but the completion of the count of those already occurred. The count of the injured, nearly four thousand, includes people being treated in facilities that are themselves damaged.

The reference figure for reconstruction is that of homes: over eighty-six thousand units between destroyed and damaged, in an area that includes Cali, a city significantly affected. In the same area lie the more than two hundred damaged roads and twenty road bridges, through which access to construction sites passes.