Abelardo de la Espriella moved to set up an emergency command post barely an hour after Colombia’s 7.4-magnitude earthquake on Monday. Earthquake In Oakland was the immediate test, and rescue teams were already working hours later with cranes and excavators.
Colombia and Venezuela
The quake toppled buildings in Cali and across Colombia’s far-flung provinces. Colombia has so far declined foreign crews except for those from the United States, and it requested humanitarian supplies instead of additional foreign rescue crews.
That response stood apart from Venezuela’s back-to-back temblors two months earlier. Families in both countries used social media to plead for help finding missing relatives after buildings collapsed, but in Venezuela, Delcy Rodríguez waited nearly four hours before addressing the nation.
Ronal Rodríguez on response gaps
Ronal Rodríguez, a Venezuela specialist at Colombia’s Rosario University, said, "The differences between an authoritarian regime and a democratic system can be seen clearly in the institutions and in their capacity to respond to an emergency". He added, "Crises are also political opportunities."
Franklin Fuentes searched for missing relatives in a collapsed building in La Guaira two days after earthquakes struck. For weeks, Venezuelan civilians were clawing through rubble by hand, while Colombian rescue teams moved with heavy equipment soon after the Monday quake.
Gustavo Petro and handover
De la Espriella was sworn in as president in Cali less than 72 hours before the earthquake. Gustavo Petro at first refused to recognize his narrow victory and alleged electoral fraud, and their feud derailed Colombia’s formal handover process.
That left key agencies, including the national disaster management agency, in transition as the quake hit. The next question is how many people were killed, injured, or still missing in Colombia after the earthquake.
