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Colombia Declares National Mourning After Devastating Magnitude 7.4 Earthquake

18 sources across 10 countries · 1 of them is linked to a state

Who reported this

  • elDiarioAR Argentina · Centre-left · Newsroom-majority owned, membership funded
  • Infobae Argentina · Centre-right · Daniel Hadad
  • La Nacion Argentina · Centre-right · Saguier family
  • El Espectador Colombia · Centre-left · Grupo Santo Domingo
  • La Silla Vacia Colombia · Centre · Foundation-owned
  • El Tiempo Colombia · Centre-right · Luis Carlos Sarmiento Angulo (Grupo Aval)
  • BBC News United Kingdom · Centre · Public · Licence fee, royal charter
  • Financial Times United Kingdom · Centre · Nikkei Inc.
  • The Economist United Kingdom · Centre-right · Exor N.V. and Agnelli family
  • CNN Brasil Brazil · Centre · Rubens Menin (MRV)
  • Folha de S.Paulo Brazil · Centre · Grupo Folha (Frias family)
  • Le Monde France · Centre-left · Fonds pour l'independance de la presse
  • France 24 France · Centre · Public · France Medias Monde (French state holding)
  • La Tercera Chile · Centre-right · Copesa (Saieh family)
  • Frankfurter Allgemeine Germany · Centre-right · FAZIT-Stiftung (foundation)
  • Corriere della Sera Italy · Centre-right · RCS MediaGroup (Cairo Communication)
  • Al Jazeera Qatar · Centre-left · State-affiliated · Qatari government funded
  • CNN United States · Centre-left · Warner Bros. Discovery

What the colours mean

  • Left
  • Centre-left
  • Centre
  • Centre-right
  • Right
  • A hatched block means the outlet is affiliated with, or controlled by, a state.

Political lean describes where an outlet sits within the politics of its own country. It is never a position on a single global scale.

Political lean is comparable inside one country and not across them, which is why the bar groups by country first. Publicly funded broadcasters are not marked as state-linked.

The owner of each outlet is listed as a matter of record, not as a judgement about the outlet.

A magnitude 7.4 earthquake struck western Colombia on Monday, August 10, with its epicenter near San José del Palmar in the Chocó province. The disaster has caused widespread destruction across several departments, including Chocó, Valle del Cauca, Caldas, Risaralda, and Quindío. Death toll estimates vary across reports, with figures ranging from 181 to over 254 people deceased and thousands more injured. The earthquake caused the collapse of numerous buildings and damaged thousands of homes, health centers, and schools. In the city of Pereira, residents faced power outages and significant structural damage, while in Cali, a night time curfew was implemented to facilitate rescue operations.

Rescue teams have reported several miraculous survivals. In Pereira, a 32 year old woman named Daniela Largo Sánchez was rescued alive after being trapped under rubble for 36 hours. In Cali, a two month old baby named Salomón and his father were recovered from the ruins of a five story building. Despite these successes, hundreds of people remain missing, and search efforts continue using cranes, dogs, and manual labor.

President Abelardo de la Espriella, who took office on August 7, declared three days of national mourning and a state of national disaster. He has promised economic subsidies for those who lost their homes. International aid has arrived or been pledged, including 15 million dollars from the United States, 2 million euros from the European Union, and humanitarian supplies from Mexico and El Salvador. The European Union also activated the Copernicus satellite system to assist in mapping the damage.

Reports on the government response vary by political perspective. Center left sources highlight the fragility of the new administration's logistics and a lack of experience in disaster management, noting tensions between the new president and the inherited emergency management team. Center right sources focus on the official government balances and the gestures of international solidarity. Center sources emphasize the humanitarian scale of the tragedy and the logistical challenges of the rescue operations. Additionally, some reports note that the chaos has created vulnerabilities in public security, while others highlight the severe impact on indigenous communities in the Chocó and Valle del Cauca regions.

How each side framed it

Centre-left
These outlets highlighted the new administration's lack of disaster management experience and the specific suffering of marginalized indigenous communities.
Centre
These outlets emphasized the humanitarian crisis, the scale of the destruction, and the general logistical challenges of the response.
Centre-right
These outlets focused on official government figures, the success of rescue operations, and the arrival of international aid.

Sources

100% of the statements in this article were traced back to the source articles listed above.