The earthquake Colombia feared. And the comparison with Venezuela

“What if it happened in Colombia? Earthquakes in Venezuela reignite the debate over how well-prepared the country is,” read the headline on 7 July in Semana, Colombia’s most widely read magazine. Now that this ominous prediction has, in fact, come true, the comparison between the two events has ceased to be a mere hypothesis and has become a reality.

At least 132 people have been killed and 570 injured, according to the report presented by the new President of the Republic, Abelardo de la Espriella, who took office just last Friday. There has been severe damage to homes, airports and hospitals in the departments of Chocó, Caldas, Risaralda and Valle del Cauca. This is the so-called Eje Cafetero, the main production area for the famous Colombian coffee, and the area around Cali, the country’s third-largest city by population. It was here that de la Espriella had chosen to hold his inauguration. The President visited the department of Chocó this morning and announced that he would be travelling to Cali in the coming hours. At least forty deaths have been recorded in the department of Risaralda, the heart of the Eje Cafetero, including 18 in the capital, Pereira. Two deaths have been reported in Manizales, another city in the coffee-growing region. In Valle del Cauca, whose capital is Cali, there have been 27 deaths.

Four hospitals in Cali have been evacuated due to damage, including the largest public hospital. According to figures released so far by the national government, the earthquake damaged 1,575 homes and completely destroyed 37, as well as causing 61 residential and commercial buildings to collapse. Damage has been reported on at least 18 major roads, with landslides and cracks, particularly in Chocó, Risaralda and Valle del Cauca. Seven airports have suspended operations: Cali, Pereira, Manizales, Quibdó, Armenia, Cartago and Buenaventura. At Matecaña International Airport in Pereira, part of the infrastructure collapsed, resulting in fatalities.

In Bogotá, too, buildings were evacuated and several people ran out onto the streets in their pyjamas as the alarm sirens blared. The psychological impact was so severe that many of the Colombians affected reported that the earthquake lasted four minutes, a claim that was also picked up by various Italian media outlets. In reality, the actual duration recorded was 96 seconds. By late afternoon, according to the Colombian Geological Service, 47 aftershocks had also been recorded. The US Geological Survey issued an orange alert and estimated losses at around 649 million dollars. Its monitoring system estimated that 1.6 million people felt strong tremors and up to 8.9 million were exposed to intense seismic activity in Colombia, Ecuador and Panama.

The magnitude was 7.4: higher than the 7.2 of the first tremor in Venezuela on 24 June, but lower than the 7.5 of the second, which occurred 39 seconds later. And a key difference lies precisely between the ‘single’ earthquake that struck Colombia and the two earthquakes that followed in quick succession in Venezuela, with the second striking structures already weakened by the first. The depth also differed: 103 kilometres in Colombia, meaning the quake was felt across a wide area; 21.9 kilometres in Venezuela. The tectonic zones are also different: the Caribbean in Venezuela; the Pacific in Colombia, where there is interaction between the Nazca Plate and the South American Plate. The epicentre was located near San José del Palmar, in the department of Chocó, on the Pacific coast. The Colombian Geological Survey noted that to the west, the oceanic plate is subducting beneath the continent at a rate of 55–60 millimetres per year, building up pressure and releasing it in deep seismic events such as the one that occurred on the morning of 10 August.

But there is also the different political structure. In Colombia, where there had in fact been a change from a right-wing president to a left-wing president – who in turn had succeeded a right-wing president – Abelardo de la Espriella immediately coordinated the rescue teams of the National Unit for Disaster Risk Management. The army immediately deployed over 180 rescue workers to search for survivors amongst the rubble. “Colombia is united and we will move forward together. You are not alone,” said the president.

In Venezuela, there is a regime which, over the last quarter of a century, has become increasingly entrenched in a scenario of authoritarian regression; this situation shifted dramatically following Maduro’s capture by US special forces, but it leaves a profound legacy. Delcy Rodríguez’s regime therefore took virtually no action in the first 72 hours and, for a time, obstructed international aid for political reasons. Rescue efforts were therefore carried out primarily by ordinary citizens, and subsequently by international aid once restrictions were lifted. Infrastructure and building regulations also played a crucial role. In Colombia, buildings constructed before 1980 were the worst affected, whilst in Venezuela it was mainly newly constructed buildings – erected under Hugo Chávez – that collapsed, as they did not comply with seismologists’ recommendations.

However, significant international aid is now also being pledged for Colombia, and the United States has already announced a grant of 15.5 million dollars, to be used for “emergency shelters, food, protective measures and damage assessment”. Shakira, Colombia’s most famous living citizen, has sent “all her strength and all her love to her homeland” via X.