Colombian emergency crews searched for 320 missing people on Saturday following a magnitude 7.4 earthquake that killed nearly 300 people across western Colombia.
Rescue teams in Pereira, Cali, and Manizales continued clearing rubble with heavy machinery six days after the quake struck on Monday, though officials warned that chances of finding survivors beneath collapsed buildings have dwindled significantly.
President Abelardo de la Espriella, who took office on August 7, held a ten-minute telephone conversation on Saturday with United States President Donald Trump to request a temporary suspension of tariffs on Colombian exports to help finance national reconstruction.
Diplomatic outreach and emergency powers
De la Espriella described the call with Trump as friendly and urged the American administration to lift duties to assist Colombian businesses struggling with the financial destruction caused by the earthquake.
Washington increased tariffs on Colombian goods from 10 percent to 12.5 percent at the end of July, although key export commodities including coffee and petroleum were exempted from the rate hike.
The Colombian president expressed gratitude to the United States for providing 26.5 million dollars in aid alongside specialized rescue personnel, while also thanking Israel for sending humanitarian assistance and rescue workers.
De la Espriella announced plans to declare a state of economic emergency after more than 14,000 homes collapsed across the country. Under Colombian constitutional law, an economic emergency grants the president executive powers to enact new taxes and reallocate national budget allocations without requiring congressional approval.
Rubble clearing and casualties in Pereira
In central Pereira, a major commercial center in Colombia's coffee-growing region, residents gathered behind yellow danger tape as rescue crews cut through shattered roofs and concrete walls. Exhausted emergency workers took brief pauses on the ground after six days of non-stop operations.
Fernando Gaitán, a 55-year-old delivery worker for a damaged restaurant in Pereira, said that finding anyone alive under the debris at this point would be a miracle, adding that he did not believe life remained beneath the rubble.
Firefighter corporal Javier Jiménez told AFP that rescue workers intend to remain at the disaster sites until the last missing person is recovered.
The death of 32-year-old Daniela Largo on Friday in a hospital cast a shadow over rescue efforts in Pereira. Largo had been pulled alive from fallen concrete on Tuesday after 37 hours trapped underground, an extraction that had sparked widespread celebration among rescue teams as a symbol of hope.
Her mother, Sandra Milena Pérez, told AFP in a telephone conversation that she wished the ordeal would end quickly, noting that Largo leaves behind a 12-year-old child.
Displacement and volunteer efforts in Cali
Further south in Cali, the country's third-largest city situated in the Valle del Cauca department, hundreds of displaced residents spent their nights sleeping in small tents pitched in public parks due to lost homes or fear of structural collapse from ongoing aftershocks.
A foul odor of decay spread across the hardest-hit urban zones as summer temperatures accelerated decomposition beneath the debris.
Local volunteers organized field kitchens to feed displaced families. María Josefa Aragón, a 42-year-old volunteer cook in Cali, told AFP that she was preparing meals for her neighbors out of heartfelt solidarity and would continue assisting them as much as possible.
Other citizens traveled immense distances to reach the disaster zone. One Venezuelan woman traveled from Spain to Cali to search for her missing 24-year-old daughter and son-in-law, telling AFP that after three years without seeing her daughter she feared finding her dead.
Relief logistics and mental health support
In the capital city of Bogotá, located high in the Andes mountains and largely unaffected by the tremors, volunteers formed human chains to load thousands of tons of donated supplies bound for devastated western provinces.
Laura Mendoza, a 47-year-old advisor volunteering at a Bogotá collection point, said that helping earthquake victims felt like assisting her own family and reassured survivors that they were not alone.
Relief agencies established both virtual and in-person psychological support centers to address mounting emotional trauma and exhaustion among emergency workers, survivors, and volunteers. Specialized programs and mobile applications were also launched to trace lost household pets.
