On a Monday morning, a powerful magnitude-7.4 earthquake shook Colombia’s Pacific coastal region, leaving widespread structural damage in its wake and sparking urgent safety response across the country, Colombian officials confirmed. According to the Colombian Geological Survey, the seismic event hit at 07:34 local time (12:34 GMT), with a hypocenter depth of 96 kilometers, or around 60 miles. Its epicenter was located just 5 kilometers east of the small rural village of San José del Palmar in Chocó province.
Nubia Carolina Córdoba, the governor of hard-hit Chocó province, confirmed that the quake had left a number of people injured, though she did not release an exact casualty count as of early reporting. In public remarks following the event, Córdoba emphasized that authorities remain on high alert for potential aftershocks that could worsen existing damage and put more residents at risk.
The intensity of the quake was felt hundreds of kilometers away from the epicenter, reaching all the way to Bogotá, Colombia’s capital situated to the east of the impact zone. In response to the shaking, multiple buildings across the capital were evacuated as a safety precaution. Tremors were also detected in Manizales, a major city in Colombia’s renowned coffee-growing region. Local leading national newspaper El Tiempo shared user-submitted footage from Manizales showing a collapsed structure, with bystanders shouting to reach individuals believed to be trapped under the rubble.
Monday’s earthquake comes just two months after a pair of powerful seismic events devastated northern regions of neighboring Venezuela, claiming the lives of more than 6,100 people. That disaster put the entire Andean region, which sits along the geologically active Pacific Ring of Fire and faces frequent seismic risk, on heightened awareness of earthquake preparedness and response protocols.