Colombia quake rescue enters final phase as death toll climbs to 265

Rescue operations in Colombia entered a critical “final phase” on Wednesday as crews raced against time to find survivors of Monday’s devastating magnitude 7.4 earthquake, with the death toll climbing to 265 and more than 3,500 people injured.

Emergency teams were closing in on the crucial 72-hour window after the quake — a period widely regarded as the best chance of finding people alive beneath collapsed structures. Nearly 500 people remain missing, according to local authorities, while more than 9,550 homes have been destroyed.

The powerful tremor, the strongest to strike Colombia this century, has left a trail of destruction across the country’s coffee-growing heartland and beyond. Pereira recorded 83 deaths, while Cali, Colombia’s third-largest city, reported 74.

“We’re entering the final phase,” Cali Mayor Alejandro Eder said on Wednesday, while stressing that survivors could still be found even after the 72-hour mark.

Rescuers race to find survivors

In Pereira, rescuers focused on a collapsed bakery where they believe a street vendor, Pablo Loaiza, may still be trapped beneath the rubble.

Using vibration-detection equipment, crews reported detecting possible signs of life, stirring hope among anxious relatives gathered outside the wreckage.

“They tell us it could be him,” Loaiza’s 16-year-old niece, Sara, told AFP. “My heart is about to burst out of my chest.”

Relatives said the trapped man appeared to respond when rescuers asked him to knock twice and then three times from beneath the debris.

In Cali, rescue crews worked through another night with cranes, sniffer dogs and their bare hands, repeatedly falling silent to listen for the faintest indication of life.

“Every half hour we make everyone be quiet to see if we can find people alive,” volunteer rescuer Johana Sanchez told AFP. She said three people had so far been pulled out alive and three others dead.

At the Torres del Limonar complex in southern Cali, residents joined soldiers and municipal workers in human chains, passing chunks of debris hand-to-hand from the towering rubble.

Rescue operations became more orderly after police restricted the number of volunteers at some sites, officials said. The reduction in noise and vibrations allowed detection equipment to better pick up possible movement beneath collapsed structures.

Government pledges reconstruction

President Abelardo de La Espriella, who took office just three days before the earthquake, travelled to the devastated regions and pledged to establish an emergency fund to rebuild hospitals, schools, homes and critical infrastructure.

“This is undoubtedly a tragedy of immense proportions,” he said, adding that the government’s immediate priority remained those still missing.

The president also declared an economic emergency to address the destruction, though details of the measures were not immediately announced.

Across the affected areas, ordinary Colombians have joined the relief effort, delivering food, water and other supplies while long queues formed outside blood donation centres.

For the new president, the catastrophe has also become an early test of his administration. De La Espriella campaigned on promises of tighter public spending and greater security, including proposals to reduce funding for the state’s risk-management apparatus — the very machinery now at the centre of the earthquake response.

“The earthquake will be the first test for the new Colombian president,” said Tiziano Breda, a senior analyst at the conflict-monitoring group ACLED.

As rescue teams sift through mountains of concrete and twisted metal, the race against the clock continues, with families still waiting for news of loved ones who may be alive beneath the ruins.

With agency inputs