A 32-year-old woman has been pulled alive from the rubble of a collapsed building in the Colombian city of Pereira, more than 36 hours after a powerful earthquake rattled the country’s west. Daniela Largo was freed following a 10-hour rescue operation in which firefighters dug a tunnel beneath four concrete slabs that had trapped her, local officials said.
Emergency workers first located Largo with the aid of a small camera, and they were able to supply her with oxygen through an opening dug from above. But freeing her required a second tunnel, dug from below, which allowed firefighters to reach and extract her from the wreckage.
Largo’s mother told the AFP news agency that a local resident had heard her daughter crying out for help from under the debris. The rescue effort involved local firefighters, colleagues deployed from the capital Bogotá, and the national police disaster response team, who together dug two separate tunnels to reach her.
Colombian President Abelardo de la Espriella celebrated the rescue on social media, describing it as “news which fills us with hope.” He said at least 265 people have died in the earthquake and 496 others remain missing. Largo’s mother added that her 12-year-old son was waiting for her at home.
In Pereira, a city in Colombia’s coffee-growing region, 79 deaths have been confirmed, the second-highest toll after Cali, where 95 people have died, according to the Association of Colombian Capital Cities (Asocapitales). At least 92 buildings collapsed in Pereira, with 15 people known to be trapped and 37 reported missing.
In Cali, Colombia’s third most populous city, more than 200 people remained trapped as of Tuesday afternoon. The city’s mayor declared a nighttime curfew and said soldiers would patrol the worst-affected areas to ensure rescue work could proceed safely. So far, 87 people have been rescued in Cali.
The 7.4-magnitude earthquake struck at 07:34 local time on Monday, with its epicentre near the village of San José del Palmar in Chocó province. It was felt across a vast area, with seismometers near the epicentre recording shaking that lasted between 90 seconds and two minutes. More than 100 aftershocks have been registered since.