Magnitude 7.4 Earthquake in Western Colombia Kills at Least 111, Officials Say

A magnitude 7.4 earthquake ripped across western Colombia on Monday, killing at least 111 people and injuring 87 others as buildings collapsed in cities and mountain towns. President Abelardo de la Espriella declared a state of emergency, saying the toll could climb as rescue crews reached isolated areas.

The quake struck at 8:34 a.m. ET near San José del Palmar, a rural community in Chocó province about 250 miles west of Bogotá, according to Colombia's geological service and the U.S. Geological Survey. A 5.0-magnitude aftershock followed less than an hour later. The USGS estimated that 10.5 million people experienced strong or very strong shaking, with tremors reported in Bogotá, in Barranquilla on the Caribbean coast and as far south as Ecuador.

The hardest-hit areas included Pereira, Cali, Manizales and Quibdó. At least 40 people were killed in Risaralda province, where Pereira is located, and at least 27 in Valle del Cauca, home to Cali. Chocó Gov. Nubia Carolina Córdoba-Curi said 12 people died in her province. Officials reported four deaths in Manizales and one in Antioquia. More than 20 municipalities were affected and hundreds of buildings were damaged, officials said.

"The quake was very, very strong," Valeria Polo, a 29-year-old content creator in Bogotá, told Agence France-Presse.

In Cali, a city of about 2 million people, Mayor Alejandro Eder said 30 structures collapsed. Jorge Moncayo, a 64-year-old taxi driver, said he saw plumes of dust rise across the city from his home. "My entire house shook," he said. "I've never lived through such a powerful earthquake."

Pereira Mayor Mauricio Salazar told a local radio station that at least 18 people had died there and that many more were trapped under "a massive quantity of collapsed buildings." Video from the city's airport showed ceiling pieces falling over travelers who were screaming and running through debris. Colombia's aviation agency suspended flights in Pereira, Manizales, Armenia, Cartago and Buenaventura.

In Manizales, Mayor Jorge Eduardo Rojas said 17 buildings had collapsed and 19 had partially collapsed. Images showed one of the towers of the city's neo-Gothic cathedral had broken off and fallen onto the nave. Authorities in Armenia evacuated residents over fears of structural damage. Bogotá Mayor Carlos F. Galán said no structural damage was reported in the capital.

Monday's earthquake was the strongest recorded in Colombia since record-keeping began in the 1920s. The country sits along the Ring of Fire, the seismically active fault line around the Pacific where most of the world's earthquakes occur. The quake hit Colombia's coffee-growing region, an area still scarred by a devastating earthquake in 1999 that killed more than 1,200 people. It also came weeks after back-to-back magnitude 7.2 and 7.5 earthquakes in neighboring Venezuela killed more than 5,000 people and caused widespread destruction.

Rescue crews were searching through rubble in several cities, and damaged roads appeared likely to slow relief efforts in rural parts of Chocó and the coffee region. Many older buildings in the region were not built to withstand severe shaking, and the destruction of churches, terminals and homes underscored how exposed the area remains to major seismic events. The emergency declaration is designed to speed funding to affected communities, but the recovery is likely to be a long and costly process as the full scale of the disaster becomes clearer.

U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio said on social media that the Trump administration was closely monitoring the earthquake and "stands ready to support the people of Colombia."