A powerful earthquake tore through western Colombia on the morning of Monday, 10 August 2026, killing at least 111 people, injuring at least 87 others, and triggering a national state of emergency. The disaster landed on the desk of a president who had been in office for fewer than 72 hours.
The tremor, measured at magnitude 7.4, struck at 7:34 a.m. local time. Its epicentre lay near San José del Palmar, a small municipality in the department of Chocó on Colombia's Pacific coast, at a depth of approximately 100 to 107 kilometres. The depth ruled out a tsunami: the Pacific Tsunami Warning Center determined there was no coastal threat.
The shaking was felt across much of the country and into neighbouring Ecuador, Panama, and Venezuela. Even in Bogotá, the capital, residents were evacuated from buildings as the tremor rolled through.
The cities that bore the heaviest damage were Cali, Pereira, Manizales, and Quibdó. In Cali alone, between 19 and 20 buildings collapsed. Bloomberg reported nearly 1,600 homes damaged in total, around 60 buildings collapsed across the affected region, and operations suspended at five airports. Major roads in the coffee-growing Eje Cafetero — the Coffee Axis — were closed after landslides, and it remained unclear how severely the region's production, which accounts for roughly a quarter of national output, had been disrupted.
Rescue operations were continuing as the death toll climbed. The figure stood at 71 in early reports and rose to at least 111 by Monday afternoon. The number of people still trapped under rubble, and the full count of displaced persons, remained unknown.
The epicentre in Chocó placed the initial rupture in one of Colombia's most remote and impoverished departments, home to large Afro-Colombian and Indigenous communities. Distance and terrain have historically slowed emergency response there.
President Abelardo De La Espriella, who was inaugurated on 7 August — and who chose to hold that ceremony in Cali, the same city now badly damaged — cancelled his scheduled agenda and flew to Bogotá to take direct charge of the response. He convened a Unified Command Post at the National Unit for Disaster Risk Management (UNGRD), saying he would personally lead the emergency effort. Al Jazeera reported the president's intention to remain at the centre of coordination throughout the crisis.
De La Espriella is an unusual figure in Colombian politics. The New York Times described him as a former criminal defence lawyer with no prior political experience, who campaigned on a pledge to confront armed groups and received an endorsement from US President Donald Trump. The earthquake is widely regarded as his first significant test in office. How governments respond to sudden disasters in their opening days tends to define early public perception of an administration, though the full measure of that judgment will depend on the scale and speed of what follows.
The United States said it stood ready to assist Colombia. The scope of any international aid commitment beyond that statement of readiness had not been confirmed by Monday afternoon.
Colombia sits within the Pacific Ring of Fire and has endured major seismic events throughout its history. The coffee-growing highlands struck on Monday still carry the memory of the 1999 Armenia earthquake, which killed more than a thousand people and destroyed much of that city. The question of whether infrastructure, rescue capacity, and political will have materially improved since then will be answered in the days ahead — as the toll continues to rise and the full extent of the damage becomes clear.
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