A vicious magnitude 7.4 earthquake struck Colombia on Monday, reportedly killing dozens of people.

The epicenter was 150 miles west of Bogotá, the country’s most populated city.

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Nubia Carolina Córdoba-Curi, the governor of the Chocó region, said on social media that there were injuries and severe damage to buildings in Quibdó, the capital of the region where about 140,000 people live.

The shaking could be felt as far as Bogotá and even some parts of neighboring Venezuela but there were no reports of damage or injuries there.

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As seismologists review available data, they may revise the earthquake’s reported magnitude. Additional information collected about the earthquake may also prompt U.S.G.S. scientists to update the shake-severity map.

Operations at several airports have reportedly been suspended and viral footage showed extensive damage to buildings.

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The Associated Press shared further:

Local officials confirmed that at least 40 people were killed in the department of Risaralda, where the hard-hit city of Pereira is located, and 27 people in the Valle del Cauca department, where Colombia’s third-biggest city, Cali, is located. Two people also died in the city of Manizales.

At least three of those killed in Valle del Cauca were children, the governor said.

The quake left cities across the west of the country — Pereira, Quibdo, Cali and Manizales — ravaged. Residents and search teams picked through the rubble of collapsed buildings amid concerns by authorities of aftershocks. Colombia’s interior minister said more than 20 municipalities across the country had been hit.

Colombia’s Pacific region around the quake’s epicenter lies along the “Ring of Fire”, the line of seismic faults encircling the Pacific Ocean where most of the world’s earthquakes occur.

Jorge Moncayo, a 64-year-old taxi driver in Cali, said he saw plumes of dust shoot up across the city as buildings collapsed. Residents and rescue workers were searching the rubble for survivors.

“My entire house shook. I’ve never lived through such a powerful earthquake,” he said. “We’re thanking God we’re alive.”

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Colombia’s Geological Service said Monday that it had been “the highest magnitude earthquake registered in Colombia in the last decade” and that it had been followed by two 2.8 and 4.8 magnitude aftershocks. Authorities also reported that flights were suspended in the airports of Manizales, Quibdo, Armenia, Cartago y Buenaventura and Pereira.

 

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