{"id":12474,"date":"2026-08-13T00:07:34","date_gmt":"2026-08-13T04:07:34","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.radiorebelde.cu\/english\/?p=12474"},"modified":"2026-08-13T00:07:36","modified_gmt":"2026-08-13T04:07:36","slug":"colombia-declares-economic-emergency-after-deadly-7-4-earthquake","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.radiorebelde.cu\/english\/colombia-declares-economic-emergency-after-deadly-7-4-earthquake-13082026\/","title":{"rendered":"Colombia Declares Economic Emergency After Deadly 7.4 Earthquake"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">President Abelardo de la Espriella activated<strong> exceptional constitutional mechanisms<\/strong> during a press conference in Bogot\u00e1, announcing the<strong> creation of a <em>\u201cmiracle fund\u201d<\/em>, an entity to channel national and international resources toward reconstruction.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The new state entity will finance the recovery of hospitals, schools, roads, airports and public infrastructure damaged by the seismic event.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><em><strong>RELATED: <a href=\"https:\/\/telesurenglish.net\/colombia-quake-denounce-aid-failure\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Colombian Quake Survivors Denounce Government Aid Failure in Choc\u00f3 and Pereira<\/a><\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><em>\u201cI inform the country that I have decided to make use of the economic emergency, a mechanism provided for in the Constitution, in order to be able to face this crisis properly,<\/em>\u201d the Colombian head of State said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The President reported that the catastrophe directly <strong>affected 25,872 Colombian families, comprising 53,816 people<\/strong>, while rescue teams continue searching for the missing and treating the wounded.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The National Unit for Disaster Risk Management (UNGDR) released its official damage report Wednesday, confirming the <strong>destruction of 9,215 homes and severe damage to another 45,457<\/strong> residential buildings. The earthquake also caused the collapse of 140 buildings and inflicted serious destruction on 1,667 educational centers, 530 community halls, 188 health facilities, 43 urban aqueducts and 29 bank offices. Transportation infrastructure suffered critical damage across 129 roads, 20 vehicular bridges and two airports.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Urban Devastation Spreads<\/h3>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Western Colombian cities absorbed the heaviest impact of the seismic activity. <\/strong>In Cali, local authorities reported 92 fatalities, 230 missing persons and the collapse of 107 homes along with 56 commercial structures. Pereira recorded 83 deaths, 45 missing people and the destruction of 75 buildings, forcing the closure of its bus terminal and operational restrictions at Mateca\u00f1a International Airport.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">In Manizales, officials registered six fatalities and 4,000 affected residents, with 1,150 homes collapsed and damage reported at 24 public schools and 16 private schools. Quibd\u00f3, capital of the Choc\u00f3 department, confirmed nine deaths, four missing persons and damage to 1,198 homes. Armenia remains under red alert with no recorded fatalities, but municipal authorities are treating 174 injured people and requesting urgent humanitarian aid for 5,000 residents affected by structural damage in 1,400 buildings.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Despite the devastation, search and rescue operations coordinated by the Association of Capital Cities (Asocapitales, in Spanish) have managed to <strong>recover 331 citizens alive from the rubble. <\/strong>Pereira leads the recovery with 243 survivors rescued, while Cali reports 88 people pulled from collapsed structures. Specialized teams from other regions of Colombia have reinforced local units in both cities, working continuous shifts through unstable debris to locate trapped individuals.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">As Wednesday night approaches, <strong>Colombia is nearing the end of the critical 72-hour window of life, the period considered most crucial for finding survivors.<\/strong> Authorities reiterated that the priority remains locating missing persons, rescuing those potentially trapped, guaranteeing medical care for the injured and accompanying affected families during the long reconstruction process ahead.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Author: Laura V. Mor<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Source: Agencies<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Source: teleSUR English<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>President Abelardo de la Espriella activated exceptional constitutional mechanisms during a press conference in Bogot&aacute;, announcing the creation of a &ldquo;miracle fund&rdquo;, an entity to channel national and international resources&hellip; <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":12475,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"ppma_author":[8],"class_list":["post-12474","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-world"],"authors":[{"term_id":8,"user_id":1,"is_guest":0,"slug":"yolaunicaquehay","display_name":"RRebeldeAdminWP","avatar_url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/e6145d63ff95c9a0f0e53b7149804b1faf86748d6cc15f466103269a288ea377?s=96&d=mm&r=g","author_category":"","user_url":"https:\/\/www.radiorebelde.cu\/english","last_name":"Radio Rebelde","first_name":"WebMaster","job_title":"","description":""}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.radiorebelde.cu\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12474","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.radiorebelde.cu\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.radiorebelde.cu\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.radiorebelde.cu\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.radiorebelde.cu\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12474"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.radiorebelde.cu\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12474\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":12476,"href":"https:\/\/www.radiorebelde.cu\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12474\/revisions\/12476"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.radiorebelde.cu\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/12475"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.radiorebelde.cu\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12474"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.radiorebelde.cu\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12474"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.radiorebelde.cu\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12474"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.radiorebelde.cu\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/ppma_author?post=12474"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}