Rescue teams, soldiers and volunteers are racing against time to find survivors trapped beneath collapsed apartment blocks and office buildings across western Colombia after the country’s strongest earthquake in a century.
The 7.4-magnitude earthquake has killed at least 241 people and left many others homeless, while more than 1,670 people have been injured.
In Pereira and Cali, families have been forced to sleep in public spaces as aftershocks continued to shake affected neighbourhoods, where entire sections of buildings were reduced to rubble.
Rescuers have been working around the clock with cranes, sniffer dogs and heavy machinery to search through the remains of collapsed structures.
Volunteers have also formed human chains, using their bare hands to remove debris in the hope of reaching survivors trapped beneath the wreckage.
The scale of the disaster has placed enormous pressure on local healthcare facilities, with authorities describing the response as one of Colombia’s largest disaster rescue operations in years.
With the search continuing amid unstable structures and repeated aftershocks, emergency teams remain focused on locating anyone who may still be alive beneath the rubble.
