Colombia earthquake death toll reaches 290 as rescue hopes fade after five days

Five days after a 7.4-magnitude earthquake tore through western Colombia, the work of rescue had become the work of recovery. Around 290 people were confirmed dead. Another 140 remained missing. Nearly 4,000 were injured. The numbers had stopped growing because the window for finding anyone alive had essentially closed.

The quake struck just after 7:30 in the morning in San Jose del Palmar, a moment of violent rupture that would reshape the western third of the country. Apartment buildings folded. Schools, churches, hospitals, and homes cracked open from the Pacific port of Buenaventura inland through the coffee-growing highlands to the major cities of Cali and Pereira. Two-thirds of the dead were concentrated in those two cities. Cali alone, with more than 2 million people, was Colombia's third-largest city, and it bore the weight of the disaster.

By Saturday morning, five days in, the rescue workers were sifting through mountains of concrete, brick, and twisted metal with a different purpose than they had started with. Alberto Hernandez, a fire captain in Cali, was blunt about the shift: only one site still showed signs of life. Everywhere else, they were recovering bodies. The 72-hour window—the threshold beyond which survival under rubble becomes nearly impossible—had passed. Yet Cali's mayor, Alejandro Eder, stood before cameras and insisted they would keep working as if those 70 remaining missing people were still alive. "Miracles do happen," he said. It was a statement of will more than expectation.

Two deaths had become symbols of the disaster's cruelty. Daniela Largo, 32, had survived 36 hours trapped under the rubble before reaching a hospital, only to die there. Juan Felipe Giraldo, 24, was pulled from a collapsed hotel after an intense rescue operation. His father had spent days waiting by the building for news. Giraldo had been scheduled to marry on Sunday. He left behind a 2-year-old son.

The earthquake had fractured more than buildings. Thousands of homes were destroyed. In Pereira, deep in the coffee region, hundreds of people spent nights on mats or in tents at a makeshift shelter in a park, waiting for word on whether their damaged apartments would hold or collapse. Coordinators reported shortages of blankets, tents, hygiene products, and food. Across the affected cities, people cleaned their neighborhoods with brooms and shovels, a gesture of normalcy in the face of chaos. Thousands in Medellin and Bogota gathered at distribution centers to donate supplies to areas they would never see.

The disaster struck at a moment of political transition. President Abelardo De La Espriella had taken office just a week earlier, a political newcomer from the right, elected on promises of austerity and security. This was his first major crisis. He faced criticism for initially refusing rescue teams from certain countries, though he later accepted teams from Israel and the United States. On Saturday, he spoke with President Donald Trump for ten minutes. Trump offered condolences. De La Espriella asked for something more concrete: a temporary suspension of US tariffs on Colombian goods to help business owners survive the aftermath.

The ground itself remained unstable. Colombia had recorded 269 aftershocks since the initial quake, each one a reminder that the earth was still settling, still dangerous. Rescue workers and volunteers continued to move through rubble that could shift without warning. By Sunday, officials said, they would likely finish recovering bodies. After that, the heavy equipment would come in to clear the debris. The work would change shape, but it would not end.