Powerful quake shakes Colombia, neighbors

BOGOTA — A powerful earthquake rocked Colombia and other Latin American countries on Monday, causing casualties, damage and building evacuations.

The quake was of 7.4 magnitude and it struck at a depth of 96 kilometers, according to Colombia's geological service. The US Geological Survey said it struck at a depth of 107 km.

The epicenter was in San Jose del Palmar, a municipality in the Choco region about 400 km west of Colombia's capital, Bogota, the US Geological Survey and Colombia's counterpart reported.

"We have just experienced a major earthquake in the department of Choco. We are concerned about aftershocks. Although the epicenter was near San Jose del Palmar, there are injuries and significant damage to buildings in the capital, Quibdo. We are already carrying out a damage assessment and will issue the first official report shortly," Choco Governor Nubia Carolina Cordoba Curi said on X.

The governor of neighboring Risaralda Province, Juan Diego Patino, told local Blu Radio there was "serious damage to some buildings" in Pereira, the provincial capital. "What has just occurred is very severe."

The mayor of Cali, Colombia's third-largest city, also reported that people were trapped in 20 collapsed buildings.

Colombia's National Unit for Disaster Risk Management said it was in contact with local authorities to monitor potential damage.

The earthquake was felt in Ecuador and as far away as Panama to the north, and it prompted building evacuations in Bogota, AFP reporters saw.

Reuters witnesses in the Venezuelan border state of Tachira and the central-western city of Barquisimeto reported the quake had been felt there.

The temblor follows two back-to-back 7.2 and 7.5 magnitude earthquakes in Venezuela in late June, which killed more than 6,000 people and caused devastating property damage.

AGENCIES-XINHUA