A 7.4 magnitude earthquake in western Colombia kills more than 100

A 7.4 magnitude earthquake struck western Colombia on Monday, August 10, bringing down buildings across several cities and trapping people in the rubble. By early Tuesday the death toll had risen to 111, with search and rescue work under way across dozens of cities and towns.

Colombia's Geological Service said it was the country's strongest recorded earthquake of the 21st century, and that several aftershocks followed. The epicentre was at San Jose del Palmar, a community of about 4,800 people in the Choco region roughly 400 kilometres west of Bogota, according to the United States Geological Survey. The quake was felt in neighbouring Ecuador and Panama.

The heaviest reported casualties were inland. At least 40 people were killed in the Risaralda region, where Pereira is located, and 27 in Valle del Cauca, where Cali is located, including three children. Around 1,600 buildings were reported damaged or collapsed, and people remained trapped in a number of Cali's 380 damaged buildings. In the town of El Cairo, home to about 7,000 people, local authorities said 80 per cent of the town was damaged.

In Cali, the country's third-largest city, search teams, soldiers, rescue personnel and ordinary residents worked together through the rubble, passing large pieces of concrete by hand down long lines of volunteers. Crowds periodically raised their fists to call for silence so that rescuers could listen for survivors. By Monday night more than 2,700 people had been reported missing, with families posting details of missing relatives on citizen-run websites and digital databases.

The area around the epicentre is among the hardest places in the country to reach. Choco is one of Colombia's poorest and most neglected regions, set in dense jungle and often affected by warring armed groups. Much of it can only be reached by boat or plane, and phone signals were out across parts of the regional capital, Quibdo, so little was known about the true extent of damage there beyond reports of dozens of injured people and damaged buildings.

Colombia's Pacific region lies along the Ring of Fire, the line of seismic faults encircling the Pacific Ocean where most of the world's earthquakes occur. The disaster has unnerved a region already shaken: two back-to-back earthquakes devastated neighbouring Venezuela in late June, destroying hundreds of buildings and killing more than 6,300 people, and searches there were still going on.

Help has begun to arrive. The United States State Department announced 15.5 million dollars for emergency shelter, food and other aid, and governments across Latin America lined up to offer assistance. The response is also the first major test for Abelardo de la Espriella, who was sworn in as Colombia's President on August 7 and is a divisive figure because of his pledge of an all-out crackdown on criminal groups.