Pereira, the “zombie city” devastated by the earthquake in Colombia

Like hundreds of volunteers and rescuers, he has spent hours searching for his aunt and other survivors of the 7.4 magnitude earthquake that strongly hit this coffee capital, located about 320 km east of Bogotá, on Monday morning.

The 35-year-old man works tirelessly on a small mountain of rubble but has lost hope of finding the woman he considers a mother alive. Between pieces of walls he saw the bathroom “full of blood” in the apartment where his aunt Nubia Bonilla, 87, lived.

“Since yesterday I arrived and I haven’t left, until they give me the body I won’t leave here,” González tells AFP. “She was the only thing I had and she left me, I was alone,” he adds with tears in his eyes.

The toll of dead and injured increases with the passing of the hours. Pereira is at the moment the second most affected city, after Cali.

President Abelardo de la Espriella, who took power just four days ago, promised to arrive on Tuesday in Pereira, with almost half a million inhabitants, to supervise the emergency.

In the morning, residents returned to their battered homes to rescue some goods before they completely collapsed. Water and some foods were already scarce in supermarkets and stores.

Almost all of Pereira was left without electricity after the earthquake that occurred at 7:34 on Monday. Its inhabitants have intermittent access to the internet and cellular network. The streets are full of glass and pieces of bricks.

It is a “zombie city,” says Juan David Gaitán, 30 years old.

The earthquake left Jesús Piñeros homeless for the second time. Three years ago he arrived in Colombia by bus fleeing the crisis in neighboring Venezuela.

But with the earthquake the house where he lived with brothers and nephews was left in pieces.

“As a migrant, you come from going through hard things there in your country and you can’t imagine what this would be like,” says this 28-year-old construction worker.

The family took refuge in a relative’s house that was left standing. Several boys sleep on mattresses along the sidewalk, in front of the house. They tried to spend the night inside, but the roof roared and terrified them.

Hundreds of homes collapsed or have cracks. In the streets there are cars destroyed by fallen walls and hanging electricity cables.

Piñeros accepts the tragedy as a challenge to rebuild their lives for the second time.

“We come from below, we have to get up again just like everyone else,” he says.

Pereira airport remains closed. Land transportation to the city also faces several closures due to landslides.

Stella Galvis remembers the moments of panic, the dust, and her running with her young son and husband seconds before the four-story building collapsed.

“We were left with nothing, we lost everything,” says the accountant who lived on a ground floor while crying. “We were saved by a miracle,” he adds.

Street vendor Maribel Verano, 46, is anxiously searching for her missing mother and sister. Both were in a small hotel that was reduced to rubble in a commercial area of ​​the city.

His mother Luz Marina, 72, recently suffered a thrombosis, and his sister Sandra, 38, was left in a wheelchair due to meningitis.

“I hope to find them healthy,” says the woman without hiding her sadness.

She is invaded by memories of other nightmarish catastrophes, such as the giant earthquake that shook the same region in 1999 and left almost 1,200 dead. And another that she experienced as a child, in 1985: the eruption of the Nevado del Ruiz volcano that devastated an entire town called Armero and left 25,000 dead.