All photos in this alert by David Escobar
The epicenter of Monday’s August 10, 2026 earthquake in Colombia was along the border of the Departments of Chocó and Valle de Cauca, a remote area near San José del Palmar, which has around 5,000 people. The urban centers most affected are Buenaventura and Cali (headquarters for our sister organization, the Pacific Center for Human Rights aka the Centro Pazífico, whose office was destroyed.) Both cities experienced significant loss of life, as well as property and infrastructure damage. Estimates continue to climb, but as of this writing, according to various sources, the number of dead is counted around 250, with close to 300 missing, and 3700 wounded.
The earthquake hit an area with thick forests and difficult terrain, with a varied rural population. While Cali and Buenaventura (three hours to Cali’s east) have the highest percentages of an African heritage people in an urban setting, Chocó has the highest rural and Departmental concentration. There are large campesino and Indigenous populations throughout the countryside across the Departments, especially in the Department of Cauca, less than an hour to the south of Cali. The larger region has the highest levels of political and/or narco- violence in Colombia. The entire general area has long experienced the debilitating effects of neglect and the abandonment of the state. For instance, the only public hospital in Buenaventura, serving a population of hundreds of thousands, is woefully undersupplied and underfunded and in constant need of repair. The disaster of the earthquake has compounded the already ongoing disasters of racism, poverty, political violence and repression, and a lack of responsible and sustainable infrastructure development.
The earthquake had a direct impact on some of our closest partners. Cali’s Pacific Center for Human Rights (CEDEHUPA, or the Centro Pazífico) building was destroyed when the quake hit in the morning hours of August 10, 2026. Likewise, Director Darnelly Rodriguez was displaced from her home because of the damage. Nevertheless, Darnelly and other Centro Pazifico collective members were among the first in the streets searching for survivors. The Centro wasted no time in putting out a call for contributions for humanitarian aid. We just published an interview with Darnelly by David Escobar.
Many of you will recognize David’s name. He is a close friend of AFGJ’s and professor of journalism at the University of Valle de Cauca in Cali. He was at home recuperating from a recent surgery when the quake hit. Rather than stay indoors, he took to the streets. Davíd has provided us with a stirring personal account of what he saw.
| All photos in this alert by David Escobar
The epicenter of Monday’s August 10, 2026 earthquake in Colombia was along the border of the Departments of Chocó and Valle de Cauca, a remote area near San José del Palmar, which has around 5,000 people. The urban centers most affected are Buenaventura and Cali (headquarters for our sister organization, the Pacific Center for Human Rights aka the Centro Pazífico, whose office was destroyed.) Both cities experienced significant loss of life, as well as property and infrastructure damage. Estimates continue to climb, but as of this writing, according to various sources, the number of dead is counted around 250, with close to 300 missing, and 3700 wounded. The earthquake hit an area with thick forests and difficult terrain, with a varied rural population. While Cali and Buenaventura (three hours to Cali’s east) have the highest percentages of an African heritage people in an urban setting, Chocó has the highest rural and Departmental concentration. There are large campesino and Indigenous populations throughout the countryside across the Departments, especially in the Department of Cauca, less than an hour to the south of Cali. The larger region has the highest levels of political and/or narco- violence in Colombia. The entire general area has long experienced the debilitating effects of neglect and the abandonment of the state. For instance, the only public hospital in Buenaventura, serving a population of hundreds of thousands, is woefully undersupplied and underfunded and in constant need of repair. The disaster of the earthquake has compounded the already ongoing disasters of racism, poverty, political violence and repression, and a lack of responsible and sustainable infrastructure development. The earthquake had a direct impact on some of our closest partners. Cali’s Pacific Center for Human Rights (CEDEHUPA, or the Centro Pazífico) building was destroyed when the quake hit in the morning hours of August 10, 2026. Likewise, Director Darnelly Rodriguez was displaced from her home because of the damage. Nevertheless, Darnelly and other Centro Pazifico collective members were among the first in the streets searching for survivors. The Centro wasted no time in putting out a call for contributions for humanitarian aid. We just published an interview with Darnelly by David Escobar. Many of you will recognize David’s name. He is a close friend of AFGJ’s and professor of journalism at the University of Valle de Cauca in Cali. He was at home recuperating from a recent surgery when the quake hit. Rather than stay indoors, he took to the streets. Davíd has provided us with a stirring personal account of what he saw. |
 What Can You Do?As supporters of AFGJ, you will know that we have been the target of a campaign of disinformation and other forms of repression because of our international solidarity work. We are as unapologetically opposed to fascism as we are to genocide in Gaza, two positions that have resulted in us being under the crosshairs of far-right extremism. One result is that we have been rendered unable to conduct financial transactions online. Nevertheless, there are three ways you can give to support the effort of the Centro Pazífico to get supplies to quake victims.
Click on this link to make a contribution.(excerpt from) Colombia: The Earth Shook. We Dug. The Bells Toll by David Escobar On August 10th, in the city of Cali, Colombia, I woke up to an earthquake so strong that for a few seconds the stairs in my house ceased to resemble stairs and became a kind of river of concrete moving beneath my feet. The first thing I did was go get my daughter, who is only a few months old, and take her and my partner down to the street, while the earth continued to shake with a force that seemed endless. The day began with the impact of seismic movements that shook a large part of Colombia and had particularly serious consequences in the western part of the country. The epicenter was located in a rural area near the border between the departments of Chocó and Valle del Cauca, but the intensity of the tremor was strongly felt in Cali and other cities and towns in the region. As soon as I left the house, I tried to contact the mother of my other son and the school where he was. The phone lines were down. The earthquake had also cut off communications in the city: the phones weren’t working, and during those first few minutes, we didn’t really know what was happening. So I decided to go pick him up from school myself. The streets were filled with people who had come out of their homes. Some stood in silence; others were talking on the phone without being able to get through; and many stared at the buildings as if expecting one of them might start moving again. There was dust in the air, sweat on people’s faces, and an eerie silence every time someone seemed to hear something beneath the rubble. Then the noise of the stones, the voices, and people calling out to one another would return…. For hours, that crowd worked with a simple, desperate hope: that there was still someone alive beneath the rubble. As we made our way through those sites, it was impossible not to think that every pile of bricks had a story behind it. A destroyed house was not just a house. It was a family that had lost the place where it slept. A crushed car was not just a vehicle. It was someone’s livelihood. A collapsed building could mean an entire life cut short in a matter of seconds. And for many people, the tragedy would not end when the earth stopped shaking. Those who lost their homes would have to relocate. Those who lost their sources of income would have to find a way to survive. Those who had already been displaced by violence or poverty might now find themselves displaced once again by a natural disaster.
Interview with human rights defender Darnelly Rodríguez by David Escobar on the current situation of the crisis caused by the earthquake in various regions of Colombia, and regarding the response of local and national governments to this crisis. How do you view the response of the city government, the Valle del Cauca government, and the Colombian government to this crisis? Well, first of all, it’s important to note that in Santiago de Cali, many homes have been severely damaged. There are many buildings that, while they didn’t collapse and there were no fatalities inside them, are currently uninhabitable. These buildings practically have to be demolished, and thousands of families are currently homeless. As for the City Government’s response—let’s just say that, from the perspective of human rights organizations, we believe that yesterday, for example, they imposed a curfew under the usual pretext of “security,” when all people are doing is going out to help others in need, and they’re terrorizing the city by claiming there’s looting and theft from abandoned buildings— but we haven’t seen that on the streets—we haven’t seen it. What we have seen is a lot of people bringing food, water, medicine, shovels, and tools to clear debris, to rescue people who are still alive, to recover the bodies of those trapped beneath the rubble, and to rescue their pets as well. So let’s just say that we believe the mayor’s office’s call for everyone to stay home to avoid a safety issue is completely out of touch with reality. What this prevents is having many more helping hands, and it limits the time available to search for people who may still be alive under the rubble. |
