The first thing is the movement. The life that begins every Monday at the first hour and suddenly, after half past seven, the ground starts to shake rhythmically: from here to there and from there to here. Through the window, the trees join this dancing. Then, the creaks of the house walls begin to sound: one creak, another one. And in the distance, the neighbors’ screams, prayers like lifelines. Immediately, the nerves of my little dog, Kosti, expressed in broken barks.
Read more Vueling resumes flights between Barcelona and Madrid starting in October
We leave the house and see it moving. Will it hold? Will it collapse? That is the only question. This earthquake is long. Almost two minutes. The measure of time always so arbitrary: two minutes is how long it takes me to drink a glass of water to quench my thirst.
Two minutes trying to keep balance against the blows of this earthquake that is increasing is a whole life passing before the eyes, while the neighbors manage to ask their God to stop: “Stop now, Father God… stop now… Come on, dear Father… don’t get angry anymore… stop.”
And yes, the earthquake has stopped. I recall the previous ones or those I have experienced to conclude that this has been the most intense, the longest, and the most frightening. The one on February 8, 1995, fewer than thirty dead and about two hundred injured. Fewer than twenty buildings fallen. The figures were not very different in the next one, on January 25, 1999. Now, everything around me looks fine. The house remains standing and there are no cracks or fissures. My neighbors and their homes are fine. Nothing has fallen in this area, which is the east of Pereira. But I suspect that the power of the ground shaking must have caused something in other parts of the city.
“We extracted the body of a young man naked. It seems the collapse caught him just before showering”
On my laptop, I look for a radio station, but there is no internet or electricity. The mobile signal has also dropped. And I laugh nervously at the futility of digital technology and the unusual importance of a transistor radio that turns on with pedestrian batteries, the kind you buy at the corner store.
The second thing is destruction. The city is on the ground. Although there are class distinctions: the buildings in the poorest blocks lie in pieces of concrete and brick on the pavement; the apartment towers of wealthy people show frightening cracks and look shaky, about to collapse. While some are under the rubble, others at a safe distance watch the damage.
The death toll from the earthquake in Colombia exceeds 260
The number of deaths from the Colombia earthquake rose to 265, while President Abelardo de la Espriella was preparing to declare an economic emergency to address the consequences of the strongest earthquake to shake the country in 47 years. To face the catastrophe, the Colombian government has authorized the entry of international rescue teams, while destruction spreads over a wide area in the west of the country and some of the most isolated communities are among the hardest hit. As the magnitude of the destruction continues to emerge, De la Espriella’s administration faces pressure to coordinate an increasingly large aid operation and provide assistance to Colombia’s most isolated communities, while trying to contain the economic impact of the disaster.
Other sectors of Pereira, occupied by the middle class, are halfway: there are fallen buildings with residents under the destruction and there are intact streets with homes without a scratch.
Read more Interior installs a floating barrier in the sea at the south dock of Melilla as in Ceuta
On the shortwave radios of some rescuers, I hear partial reports: several bridges connecting large parts of the city were damaged. The public university is severely affected, some private ones too. Like the airport. There are medical centers with damage.
“There are fallen buildings with residents underneath and there are intact streets with homes without a scratch”
At 15th Street with Ninth Avenue, downtown, a multi-story building that served as a residence for street vendors and day scavengers is on the ground: the floors, which are concrete slabs, have been stacked one on top of another forming a tilted heap of destruction. I excuse this parallel: they look like the layers of a mille-feuille that has been compacted. Below, neighbors say, there are people. And groups of volunteers begin to form. Without gloves, helmets, or tools: people focus on removing what they can and asking if anyone is alive. Voices and cries are heard. And we gather in a burst of spirit: “Let’s get him out!”
The third, which is the last for now, is the pain of death amid small victories of life. And the chaos of the hours afterward.
After hammering adobe bricks, chiseling rods, removing pieces of cement, we have extracted the body of a young man naked. It seems the collapse caught him while he was in the bathroom just about to shower to start the day. The sudden interruption of a destiny.
In the block behind, I enter the collapse zone of a five or six-story hotel, located above a market. The hotel owner tells me there were fifteen guests, eight already extracted among dead and dying, and seven still under the disaster. People who had arrived in Pereira on the previous Sunday afternoon to take on temporary work during the week. The owner of what was the hotel does not hide his grief.
There is a central point for collecting aid and setting up shelters located in Olaya Herrera Park, the only green area park in the city. All the people left homeless are coming here to find a place under the tents. All food and everyday utensil donations are being received here. The city resists succumbing. And someone from the highest part of the park shouts: “Food… there is food!”
Sorrowful and slow, people get up from their makeshift beds and form lines to reach the person who, at the foot of the community pot, will serve the plates during the coming weeks.
Read more Ceuta confronts the Government and the PP despite their agreement on the return of minors
