Amid the quake devastation in western Colombia, little is known about the extent of the damage in Chocó, a remote region where officials reported dozens of injured people and damaged buildings but few other details.

Phone signals were out in many parts of the region’s capital, Quibdo. The town closest to the earthquake’s epicentre, San Jose del Palmar, has no airport and is located on top of a mountain ridge along a highway linking the cities of Cali and Pereira.

In Pereira, further south in the coffee-producing mountains of Colombia, photos and videos on local media showed pieces of the airport ceiling falling onto travellers taking shelter and screaming, the Associated Press reports.

People ran through rubble and plumes of dust, and residents said collapsed stores, residential buildings and homes lined the city.

Pereira mayor Mauricio Salazar told a local radio station there were at least 15 collapsed buildings where people were feared trapped.

In nearby Manizales, one of the towers of the neo-Gothic cathedral collapsed and fell on the nave. Mayor Jorge Eduardo Rojas asked residents to stay outside in case of aftershocks.

Authorities said flights were suspended at the airports in Manizales, Quibdo, Armenia, Cartago, Buenaventura and Pereira as they assessed damage.

It is now 11pm on Monday in Colombia, almost 16 hours after the 7.4-magnitude earthquake struck at 7.34am.

The Colombian Geological Service said by late Monday it had recorded 21 aftershocks, including a 2.8- and 4.8-magnitude aftershock. The service has warned additional tremors are likely.

As the nighttime search to find Colombian quake survivors continues, a Cali resident and rescue volunteer has been quoted as saying her group helped seven people out of a fallen building but there were still four people and a dog trapped underneath.

“A moment ago there was scratching but now we can’t hear anything,” Carmen Yasmin Garcia, 43, said. “We still have faith that the dog is alive and we can get these people out.

The more people lending a hand the better.

Reuters also quotes Saul Paz, a resident of a Cali residential complex that partially collapsed, as saying he had been in the dining room with his son and wife when the shaking began.

“I ⁠think if it had lasted five seconds more there would be nothing left,” the 69-year-old said.

There are people who went to bed last night with a house ​and a car and today they won’t have anything.

Authorities ‌in the western Colombian cities of Cali, Armenia and Manizales have announced curfews in the aftermath of the quake, with Cali’s mayor saying threats of looting had forced him to deploy police and military personnel to the streets.

President Abelardo de la Espriella promised 1,000 additional security personnel for the city, the largest in western Colombia.

As night fell in Colombia, rescue workers and volunteers ‌with headlamps have hurried to find people still trapped under rubble.

Video broadcast by Caracol Television showed a group of people pulling a small baby covered in dust from under a pile of debris. The six-month-old girl and her mother were rescued from under a five-story building in Cali, it reported.

Video from Cali also showed rescue workers rappelling people out from the windows of a local hospital, Reuters reports.

In the hard-hit city of Pereira, rescue workers told local TV they were in contact with a young boy trapped under a bakery, and crane operators were working to remove badly damaged parts of buildings.

Cali authorities said ‌the Petronio Alvarez festival, an annual celebration of Pacific music which was due to start on Wednesday, has been postponed.

Colombia’s earthquake struck just three days after Abelardo de la Espriella was sworn in as president, thrusting his new administration into its first major crisis, with memories still fresh of devastating twin earthquakes ⁠in neighbouring Venezuela in June.

“The national government ⁠has all of its capabilities deployed to protect ​lives, assist affected communities and deliver aid wherever it is needed,” he said in a national address about 1pm local time on Monday, declaring a national state of emergency and giving a death toll of 111.

The first priority is rescuing the people trapped under the rubble.

De la Espriella visited Quibdo, the capital of ⁠coastal Chocó province, where he promised rent subsidies for those who had lost homes, and then travelled to Cali, western Colombia’s largest city, Reuters reports.

He had been expected to give an updated national death toll on Monday evening but only gave figures for Valle del Cauca province, where Cali is located, saying 35 people had died there and 700 been ⁠injured.

Some local media have cited a national total of 132 deaths, though the figure’s origin is unclear.

More reports are emerging of the chaotic scenes that followed the earthquake that struck several cities across Colombia’s picturesque coffee region and Pacific, sending panicked residents on to the streets and damaging at least 1,500 buildings.

“People ran out naked, people jumped from the second floor of their homes” Wilmer Cuesta, a law student in Quibdo, told Agence France-Presse, recounting violent shaking.

Dentist Julian Pena was at home in Quibdo when he felt “very, very strong” shaking.

“People were praying in the street. It was overwhelming,” he told AFP. “I ran outside carrying nothing and found hundreds of people there.”

There are many buildings with gaps, with cracks. There are others that have completely collapsed.

There were scenes of destruction in several cities, with furniture and fabrics sandwiched between concrete, walls and floors tossed into irregular angles, and cabling strewn across roads.

Further to the last post: Mauricio Andrade, a firefighter in Colombia’s third most populous city of Cali, said his team had rescued two adult women and two children from a collapsed building.

As he spoke, his team was preparing to rescue more people from the rubble.

“They are alive,” he told Reuters. “We are making space so we can free them and get them out.”

Juan Carlos Osorio told Caracol Television that the collapse of one building “sounded like a bomb”, as he helped remove debris from a collapsed structure in Cali.

All of us neighbours are working together, forming human chains. We need heavy equipment. There are many people trapped.

Reports from Chocó, near the epicentre of the quake, have been slowed by communications outages, with some areas still lacking mobile phone service hours after the earthquake. ‌

Governor Nubia Carolina Cordoba said 12 people had been killed and 84 injured in the largely rural area.

The quake’s heaviest casualties appeared to be concentrated in Risaralda, part of Colombia’s coffee-growing region. Pereira, the department’s capital, suffered extensive damage, with rescue workers continuing to search collapsed buildings for survivors.

A four-story building crumbled in Pereira during the quake, according to Reuters-verified video, while footage from Manizales showed one of the side towers of the city’s landmark neo-Gothic cathedral collapsing and scattering debris onto nearby streets.

Reuters footage showed rescue workers, police and volunteers shovelling debris by hand and loading rubble into trucks as they searched for trapped survivors. Other footage showed damage to residential towers and emergency-service facilities, with debris crashing onto ambulances parked below.

Colombia’s Pacific region around the epicentre of the earthquake lies along the Ring of Fire, the line of seismic faults encircling the Pacific Ocean where most of the world’s quakes occur.

The Pacific, particularly the Chocó region where the quake hit, is one of Colombia’s poorest and is nestled in dense jungle. Much of the region is reachable only by boat or plane, which may pose a problem for authorities in assessing the wider toll, as the AP reports.

Northwestern University seismologist Suzan van der Lee said the ​quake’s powerful magnitude, inland location and strike-slip motion may have amplified damage in populated valleys despite its considerable depth.

“This one was ​far below the crust, and in ‌theory it shouldn’t cause as much ​shaking,” she said, quoted by Reuters. “At this magnitude, it did actually ​cause a lot of shaking.”

The Colombia earthquake has left many people trapped under the debris of damaged buildings as their loved ones and rescue workers search through the rubble.

Search teams and civilians picked through the remains of destroyed buildings in the country’s third-largest city, Cali, passing large pieces of concrete and other rubble down a long line of volunteers.

“Our building has basically been left in ruins, and the building next to ours? Completely collapsed,” said Álvaro López, who cradled his dog as he watched the search.

The desperate scene recalled the searches still ongoing in neighbouring Venezuela weeks after that country was devastated by back-to-back quakes in June, the Associated Press reports.

Besides Cali, the quake-ravaged cities across western Colombia including Pereira, Quibdo and Manizales and was felt in neighboring Ecuador and Panama.

Colombia’s vice-president, José Manuel Restrepo Abondano, posted on X:

Mr. President, I heed your instruction. We already have the support of our international allies who have responded with solidarity and commitment. We will not rest until that aid reaches every family that needs it and contributes to the recovery of the affected territories. Today the world extends a hand to #Colombia, and we will stand by every community struck by this tragedy, working tirelessly to help it move forward.

As we reported earlier, world leaders including the US and EU have sent messages of solidarity and offered support to Colombia.

Ecuador’s president Daniel Noboa Azin also offered 47 rescuers, specialized dogs, and equipment with autonomy to operate for 7 days. “We are ready to mobilize whenever you require,” he wrote on X.

Mexico’s president Claudia Sheinbaum also wrote: “Of course, all the support that the people of Colombia may require; we’ll be there.”

Brazil’s Lula also expressed his solidarity, writing on X: “Brazil remains at Colombia’s disposal to provide the necessary support.”

Nayib Bukele, president of El Salvador, said he was in communication with Colombian officials and was “ready to provide immediate support with our rescue teams, medical personnel, paramedics, supplies, or any other assistance that our Colombian brothers and sisters deem necessary”.

In Europe, French president Emmanuel Macron said: “I extend, on behalf of France, my most sincere thoughts to the Colombian people. I think of the victims, their families, the injured, and all those who have been affected by this disaster. Our solidarity also goes to the rescue teams and all those who are working, with courage, to assist the affected populations. In this ordeal, Colombia can count on our friendship and our support.”

Spanish prime minister Pedro Sánchez also offered “affection and solidarity with the Colombian people” and said Spain “stands with Colombia” at this difficult time.

Italian PM Giorgia Meloni said she was “anxiously” following updates on the earthquake. “In these difficult hours, Italy stands in solidarity with the Colombian people, the affected families, and all those engaged in rescue and assistance operations,” she said.

And Volodymyr Zelenskyy said Ukraine stands in “full support” and offered his condolences to those who have lost loved ones. “We call on everyone around the world who can support the affected people and countries right now to step up and help,” he wrote on X.

Colombian pop star Shakira has said her heart is with “everyone who felt this earthquake today”.

“In times like these, we Colombians know how to come together and support one another,” she wrote on X. “All my strength and love for my homeland. Let’s embrace tightly and stay tuned to the instructions so we can help as soon as possible.”

European Commission president Ursula von der Leyen said on Monday that the European Union was “ready to provide more support” to Colombia.

“Tonight, Europe’s heart is with the people of Colombia after the terrible earthquake in the Choco region. We have already mobilised Copernicus, our satellite service, to help with rescue operations,” she wrote on social media.

In an address to the nation around midday (local time), president de la Espriella said his government had deployed all of its capabilities “to protect lives, assist affected ‌communities and deliver aid wherever it is needed”.

“The first priority is rescuing the people trapped under the rubble,” he said.

The 7.4 magnitude quake struck at a depth ⁠of 107 km (66 miles) in Choco, a sparsely populated province on Colombia’s Pacific coast, but was felt in major cities nationwide.

The earthquake caused a tower of Manizales’ beloved cathedral to fall over. “A great many buildings” in the city sustained damage, administrator Jaime Zuluaga, 50, told AFP. “Traffic is paralyzed and people don’t want to go back to their homes for fear of an aftershock.”

Colombia’s president Abelardo de la Espriella, who was just sworn in on Friday, said earlier that he was heading to Bogota to convene an emergency meeting.

“To the Colombians who are going through difficult times today, I want to say: You are not alone,” he added.

Washington is “closely monitoring the large earthquake that struck Colombia and stands ready to support the people of Colombia,” US secretary of state Marco Rubio wrote on X.

Israel offered its assistance, as did Mexican president Claudia Sheinbaum and Ecuador’s Daniel Noboa.

Video posted on social media shows people fleeing as a building collapses during the powerful earthquake in Pereira, Colombia.

At least 69 people have been killed in the Colombia earthquake that has trapped residents under debris of collapsed buildings and forced people to evacuate their homes.

The epicenter was in San Jose Del Palmar, a community of about 4,800 people in the Chocó region about 250 miles (400 kilometers) west of Bogota, according to the US Geological Survey and Colombia’s counterpart. The USGS said it struck at a depth of 66 miles (107 kilometers). The quake also was felt in neighboring Ecuador, Venezuela and Panama, though minimal damage was reported there.

Local officials confirmed that at least 40 people were killed in the department of Risaralda, where the hard-hit city of Pereira is located, and 27 people in the Valle del Cauca department, where Colombia’s third-biggest city, Cali, is located. Two people also died in the city of Manizales.

At least three of those killed in Valle del Cauca were children, the governor said.

More photos of the damage caused by the earthquake in Colombia…

People remain trapped in Cali, one of Colombia’s largest cities, ​after more than two dozen structures ‌collapsed, mayor Alejandro Eder said. ‌

He added that the city had asked authorities in Bogota and Medellin to send disaster teams ‌to support rescue efforts.

“At this point, two people have already been rescued alive, one elderly woman and one young girl. There are more people trapped,” Eder told Blu Radio.

“We have at least 12 critical points and 25 collapsed structures that we are responding to.”

Colombia’s Geological Service said that it had been “the highest magnitude earthquake registered in Colombia in the last decade” and that it had been followed by two 2.8 and 4.8 magnitude aftershocks.

Authorities also reported that flights were suspended in the airports of Manizales, Quibdo, Armenia, Cartago y Buenaventura and Pereira.

Here are some images of the destruction caused by the earthquake in Colombia today:

Jorge Moncayo, a 64-year-old taxi driver in Colombia’s third-biggest city, Cali, said he saw plumes of dust shoot up across the city from him home in the mountains as buildings collapsed after the earthquake.

Residents in the city and rescue workers were already searching the rubble of collapsed buildings Monday morning.

“My entire house shook,” he said. “I’ve never lived through such a powerful earthquake.”

Manizales’ mayor, Jorge Eduardo Rojas Giraldo, said more than 12 buildings and 20 homes had been partially or completely destroyed in that city.

At least two people had died as a result of the quake, Rojas added in a social media video. He said citizens needed to be “completely ready” for aftershocks.

“Do not go back into the buildings yet – I know this isn’t easy but stay outside for a little while at least because there could be an aftershock.”

The mayor of Cali, Alejandro Eder, said at least 20 buildings had collapsed in his city and that some people were trapped inside. He did not specify how many.

“Right now, we are trying to map out what has happened, firstly to protect lives and secondly to be able to push ahead with any kind of rescue that might be necessary,” Eder said, urging citizens to stay calm.

Cali’s mayor also instructed residents to check their buildings for structural damage. “If you do not feel safe, if you see very large cracks, please, leave the building,” he advised.

Colombian president Abelardo de la Espriella said in a post on X that he will personally supervise recovery efforts and install an emergency centre in San Jose del Palmar.

The quake follows two back-to-back 7.2 and 7.5 magnitude earthquakes in Venezuela in late June. Those earthquakes destroyed hundreds of buildings and killed more than 5,000 people.

Footage shared by local media outlets showed homes and small buildings collapsing in the cities of Pereira, Cali and Quibdo.

In Manizales, a city about 190 miles (300km) west of Bogota, one of the towers of the neo-Gothic cathedral collapsed and fell on the nave.

In Cali, a city of 2m people, mayor Alejandro Eder said that residents were trapped in at least 19 buildings that had collapsed.

Small earthquakes, known as “temblores,” are common in central and western Colombia, but those above 6.0 magnitude are rare. In 1999, a 6.2 magnitude quake near the city of Armenia, killed more than 1,100 people.