Colombia's Death Toll Hits 132 as Rescuers Race Through Rubble in Pereira and Cali

Since the quake struck at 7:34 a.m. local time Monday, Colombia's death toll has risen from an initial count of 111 to at least 132, according to the Colombian Association of Capital Cities, cited by the Times of India. More than 570 people are injured. Officials warn the number of dead will keep climbing as crews reach areas still cut off by damaged roads.

The epicenter was near San José del Palmar, a village of about 4,800 people in Colombia's Chocó province, at a depth of 103 kilometers, according to Colombia's geological service, cited by the BBC. The U.S. Geological Survey placed it roughly 250 miles west of Bogotá. The shaking was felt as far away as Ecuador and Panama.

Pereira has absorbed the worst of it. Local authorities there have reported at least 60 deaths in the city's metropolitan area, per the Times of India, with earlier figures from NPR putting the Risaralda region's toll at 40 and rising. At least 65 buildings collapsed in Pereira alone, and people remain trapped in 15 of them, the BBC reported. Video verified by the BBC showed a building coming down in the city's main square, Plaza Bolívar, as people fled through dust and debris. Footage from Pereira's Matecaña International Airport showed ceiling panels collapsing onto the passenger seating area while travelers took cover.

Cali, Colombia's third-largest city, has also been hit hard. Thirty-two buildings collapsed there, according to the BBC. NPR reported that rescue teams and civilians formed volunteer lines to pass broken concrete out of the wreckage by hand. One resident, Álvaro López, told NPR his building had been "left in ruins" while the one next door "completely collapsed." The pediatric and neonatal wards of a Cali hospital were among the damaged structures, according to the Times of India.

Deaths have also been confirmed in Manizales, Quibdó, Medellín and across the Chocó and Valle del Cauca regions. NPR reported at least 27 dead in Valle del Cauca, including three children, nine in Chocó, two in Caldas, and a 73-year-old victim in Antioquia. The origin point of the location for roughly 32 of the confirmed deaths was still unclear as of NPR's reporting.

Not every place near the epicenter got hit the same way. San José del Palmar's mayor, León Fabio Marín Moncada, said there were no deaths or injuries in his village despite serious damage to the roads leading in and out, the BBC reported. About 150 kilometers from the epicenter, journalist and meteorologist Luis Felipe Molina told the BBC his home in Manizales withstood the shaking because of strict seismic building codes adopted after previous earthquakes. "I have 450 books and only a few were left standing on the shelves," he said, describing the shaking without structural failure.

Colombia's geological service called it the country's strongest quake recorded in the 21st century, followed by multiple aftershocks, according to NPR. President Abelardo de la Espriella said at least 87 people were injured and roughly 1,600 buildings damaged, with 61 completely collapsed, based on figures NPR reported Monday, before the injury count from the Colombian Association of Capital Cities climbed past 570 in the Times of India's more recent tally. De la Espriella declared a state of emergency to speed disaster funding and told the public, "We aren't going to leave people alone. They are in our hearts and we are going to tend to people with our full determination."

A curfew was imposed in parts of Pereira through 5 a.m. local time Tuesday. Soldiers have been deployed nationwide to support search-and-rescue operations, the Times of India reported.

One digital missing-persons database has logged more than 2,000 names, mostly from Cali and Pereira, as families search for loved ones, according to the Times of India. That figure is separate from and larger than the confirmed death toll, reflecting the scale of the search still underway rather than a projected fatality count.

The disaster lands on a region already reeling. NPR noted that back-to-back earthquakes in neighboring Venezuela in late June killed more than 6,300 people and destroyed hundreds of buildings, a toll still being tallied weeks later. Colombia's Chocó region, one of the country's poorest and reachable in many areas only by boat or plane, could complicate efforts to get a full accounting of casualties there.

How high the toll climbs depends on what crews find as they reach the roughly 15 collapsed buildings in Pereira still believed to hold trapped survivors. Whether the 1,600 damaged structures Colombian officials have counted so far represents a floor or ceiling remains unclear once inspectors reach harder-hit rural zones in Chocó.