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BOGOTA, Aug 16 (Reuters) – Search teams worked through the rubble of collapsed buildings in western Colombia on Sunday, nearly a week after a powerful earthquake devastated cities and towns across the country’s west, killing hundreds and leaving many more missing, injured or homeless.
The 7.4-magnitude quake struck Monday morning in San Jose del Palmar, causing severe damage from the Pacific port of Buenaventura to Colombia’s coffee-growing region and major western cities including Cali and Pereira.
Official estimates issued on Sunday put the death toll at around 290, with more than 140 people still missing and 4,200 injured. More than two-thirds of the deaths were concentrated in Cali and Pereira, where apartment blocks, homes, churches, schools and hospitals were damaged or destroyed.
In Cali, Colombia’s third-largest city, emergency workers continued searching unstable piles of concrete and twisted metal on Sunday as rescue efforts increasingly gave way to the recovery of bodies.
“Unfortunately, there are no signs of life,” Cali fire department Captain Alberto Hernandez said. “Miracles can happen, but honestly – as a believer and based on what we have seen – there is no indication that anyone is still alive.”
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Aftershocks have added to the danger for crews working in damaged neighborhoods and for residents still unable to return home.
“Work has to be done very carefully and methodically… so we do not put rescuers or community members helping at the site at further risk,” Hernandez added.
As hopes of finding more survivors dimmed, the relief operation was expanding.
In Bogota, a stadium has been turned into the country’s biggest donation collection center, while in Pereira authorities were treating injured pets and distributing donated animal food.
“Horrible, it’s overwhelming,” said Claudia Galeano, 53, who lost her home in Pereira. Her father, Arnulfo Galeano, was pulled alive from the rubble but later died in hospital.
“The earthquake took my father from me, but there are people worse off than me, left on the street, without family, without anything.”
The quake is the first major crisis facing President Abelardo De La Espriella, who took office just days before the disaster and now faces the task of overseeing relief and reconstruction.
De La Espriella said on Sunday that Colombian billionaire banker Jaime Gilinski, who also controls food company Nutresa, would donate 150 billion pesos ($47.75 million) to rebuild hospitals and schools in Gilinski’s hometown Cali. The Santo Domingo family, which controls a vast media empire in the nation, had already pledged $32 million on Friday.
($1 = 3,141.5000 Colombian pesos)
(Reporting by Luis Jaime Acosta in Bogota; Additional reporting by Santiago Limachi in Cali, Colombia, Felipe Leon in Pereira, Cololmbia and Javier Andres Rojas and Natalia Bejarano in Bogota; Writing by Kylie Madry; Editing by Chizu Nomiyama)
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Copyright Reuters or USA Today Network via Reuters Connect.
This story was originally published August 16, 2026 at 9:22 AM.