The Daily Journal – The death toll continues to rise following the powerful 7.4-magnitude earthquake that struck Colombia on Monday. While the National Unit for Disaster Risk Management (UNGRD) has yet to issue a unified official report, departmental governments have released partial figures that now put the confirmed death toll above 230 across at least four areas of the country.
So far, the earthquake has hit the central department of Risaralda the hardest, where local authorities estimate that “approximately 90 people have died,” according to regional Government Secretary Israel Londoño. He warned that the figure could change as rescue teams continue searching through the rubble.
Southwestern Colombia also faces a tragedy of enormous proportions. In the department of Valle del Cauca, a preliminary report from the departmental government lists 35 deaths across several municipalities. The situation remains especially critical in Cali, the departmental capital, where emergency teams have confirmed 95 deaths, making the city one of the areas suffering the greatest human toll from the disaster.
The earthquake’s epicenter lay in the western department of Chocó. Governor Diana Carolina Córdoba Nuri reported that despite the region’s proximity to the epicenter, the earthquake has claimed 14 lives there. The government of Caldas, in central Colombia, has reported another six deaths.
The central government’s delay in updating the nationwide figures has created an information gap that regional authorities have sought to fill with their own reports.
Emergency crews continue working against the clock to search for survivors and assess structural damage, while the entire country braces for what could become one of its worst seismic disasters in recent years.
With information from EFE.
