Rescuers Search for Victims in Quake Rubble of Colombia
Rescuers using picks, shovels and their bare hands searched frantically through rubble Thursday for survivors of an earthquake that wrecked the western Colombian city of Pereira, killing at least 38 people and injuring more than 230.
Their patience was rewarded when they pulled Mercedes Coronado, 42, from the rubble of a five-story apartment building where she had been trapped for nearly 24 hours.
Her maid, Carmen Moreno, 22, who was trapped along with her, died of a heart attack, brought on in part by dehydration, an hour before Coronado was rescued.
The quake, the most deadly here in 12 years, shook a wide area of western Colombia at 1:41 p.m. Wednesday, toppling some tall buildings, opening huge cracks in others and sending residents running out into the streets in panic.
The 6.5-magnitude earthquake was centered about 175 miles west of Bogota, the Geophysical Institute of the Andes reported.
President Ernesto Samper on Thursday visited Pereira, a city of 700,000 in Colombia’s coffee-growing region 100 miles west of Bogota. During his visit, government officials announced $2.36 million in aid to rebuild the nearly 700 homes wrecked by the quake.
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