A touching moment of hope amid the disaster in Colombia: after a multi-hour operation, rescuers pulled a living mother and her child from beneath a collapsed building. The 7.4-magnitude earthquake claimed dozens of lives and left hundreds injured.
In the moments when rescuers in the Colombian city of Cali were racing against time and the vast expanse of rubble, what many have already called a miracle occurred. Firefighters and paramedics, after a grueling multi-hour search, managed to pull a mother and her baby, just a few months old, alive from beneath the collapsed concrete structures of a residential building in the south of the city.
The emotional moment when the tiny child was carried to safety from the debris was met with applause and tears from gathered volunteers and rescue teams. This event quickly became a symbol of hope and resilience in a city that has suffered the worst consequences of the most devastating earthquake to hit the region in the last decade.
The 7.4-magnitude earthquake struck Colombia on Monday, August 10, 2026, at 7:34 a.m. local time. The epicenter was located in San José del Palmar, in the department of Chocó, at a depth of 82 kilometers. The hardest hit was Cali, the capital of the Valle del Cauca department, where the consequences are catastrophic. According to the latest reports, the total death toll across the country has exceeded 200, with more than 500 injured, and dozens still listed as missing.
According to data released by the city administration, 15 people lost their lives in Cali, and 380 were injured. The situation is even more severe at the departmental level in Valle del Cauca, where the death toll has risen to more than 27. In total, based on currently available information, more than 40 people have died in this natural disaster across Colombia.
Due to the massive influx of injured and damage to key facilities, Cali's mayor, Alejandro Eder, declared a red alert in hospitals. As many as ten health centers had to be urgently evacuated, further complicating the delivery of aid to those affected. The city's Emergency Regulation Center (CRUE) is coordinating the transfer of critically injured patients to other facilities.
Meanwhile, rescue teams have focused their efforts on the most critical points in the city, such as the intersection of Avenida Roosevelt with Calle 43 and on Calle 9, where there are fears that more people may be trapped beneath the rubble. Aware that local capacities are insufficient for such a disaster, Mayor Eder issued an urgent appeal for help and requested the deployment of specialized rescue teams from Bogotá and Medellín, as reported by El Tiempo.
As the fight for every life in the rubble continues, dramatic appeals are coming from the ground. "Help us, blood is needed," the Italian newspaper La Repubblica quotes an appeal for blood donations. In one of the collapsed medical facilities, the situation is particularly dire. The director of that institution, Torres, told La Repubblica that at least ten people, including patients and staff, are trapped under the debris.
President de la Espriella has declared a state of emergency. In the city of Manizales, the earthquake caused the detachment and fall of a statue of Christ from the tower of the local cathedral, further testament to the strength and wide radius of destruction of this earthquake.
While some were less fortunate, other families managed to escape at literally the last moment. Liliana Pérez Ocampo shared a harrowing video on social media showing her family running in panic from their house as the powerful earthquake shook everything around them, with parts of walls beginning to fall. "Only God knows what we felt," she wrote in the post. The interior of their home was later captured partially destroyed, with a collapsed ceiling and exposed walls, but fortunately, no one in the household was injured.
A similar experience was shared by Roraimeanka Hellen Crys de Souza, who was on vacation in Bogotá. At the time of the earthquake, she was with a friend on the 14th floor of a building. "We didn't think twice; we just ran down the stairs. On every floor we passed, more and more people were coming out, running in despair," Hellen recounted. She described terrifying scenes where "dogs were terrified, some even wet themselves from fear," adding: "It was desperate. Only when we started going down the stairs did we realize it was really an earthquake, because until then, there was no one in the hallways. The building was just swaying a lot, a lot." Despite the initial shock, life in her part of the city began returning to normal just ten minutes after the quake.
