At least 82 people were killed after a powerful earthquake struck western Colombia early on Monday, knocking down buildings across several cities and leaving others trapped in the rubble.
The quake struck just days after Abelardo De La Espriella was sworn in as president, thrusting the new administration into its first major crisis, with memories still fresh of devastating twin earthquakes in neighboring Venezuela in June.
The 7.4 magnitude quake, according to the U.S. Geological Survey, struck at a depth of 107 km (66 miles) near San Jose del Palmar, in Choco, a sparsely populated province on Colombia’s Pacific Coast, but was felt in major cities nationwide.
“Significant casualties and damage are likely and the disaster is potentially widespread,” the agency warned.
The highest reported death toll was in the western province of Risaralda in Colombia’s coffee-growing region, where Governor Juan Diego Patino, speaking by phone to Caracol Television, reported 42 fatalities.
Cali, one of Colombia’s biggest cities, was among the worst hit, though authorities have yet to confirm deaths there. Mayor Alejandro Eder told Caracol at least 30 buildings had collapsed and rescue crews were working at 10 of them. Caracol showed firefighters and Colombian Red Cross workers carrying a survivor on a stretcher from one collapsed building.
Meanwhile, a video of the Cathedral Basilica of Our Lady of the Rosary shaking and partially collapsing has gone viral on social media.
Clips showed the building trembling amid a strong earthquake, sending people scurrying to the streets.
The cathedral, dating to the 1920s, is Colombia’s tallest cathedral and one of the highest neo-Gothic churches in the Americas.
