The Working Classes Rescue Colombia After the Magnitude 7.4 Earthquake and Government Absence

The morning of August 10 did not begin with the festive rumble of marimbas announcing the 30th anniversary of the Petronio Álvarez Festival. At 7:34 a.m., the earth roared from the depths of Chocó with a devastating magnitude of 7.4. In a matter of seconds, the geography of Cali and the Coffee Region fractured. What was supposed to be coverage of Afro-descendant joy and Pacific music suddenly became a five-day chronicle amid the cracks of tragedy, institutional abandonment and unbreakable popular dignity.

The Sound of Collapse and the First Voices

On the first day of coverage, the air at Carrera 39 and Roosevelt Avenue became thick and gray. A residential building had been reduced to a shapeless mountain of twisted rebar and pulverized concrete. Amid the initial chaos, with no sirens or official rescuers in sight, neighbors were the ones who dug through the earth with their bare hands.

A few blocks away, at Carrera 44 and Calle 5, a man with blood on his head and a distraught expression recounted into the microphone the seconds when his world came crashing down, as he continued searching for his dog, Toby:

“The earthquake started from left to right, and a minute later it shifted from north to south. From the fifth floor, we felt a strong gust of wind. I told my wife to get under the doorframe… everything collapsed. When the cloud of dust cleared, there was a little opening of about 50 centimeters, and through it, even though we were all pinned down, we managed to get out. We all got out alive, but my little dog remained inside… God bless him. I am still looking for him.”

That 50-centimeter miracle coexisted with desperation on Carrera 39, where paramedic María Eugenia Sánchez raised her voice amid the disorder, giving the second key interview through the smoke:

“Yesterday, we pulled out five people: three deceased and two alive. Today, we recovered two more, but they no longer had vital signs. We need construction companies to help us with heavy machinery, real manpower, gloves, flashlights, catheters and compresses. Ordinary people are the ones carrying out the rescues.”

The Territorial Fracture and Julián Álvarez’s Outcry

By the second day, the cloud of dust began to settle, but the uncertainty only deepened. Cracks in Cali’s building facades were visible on nearly every block in the southern part of the city; structures that did not collapse remained fractured like dominoes awaiting the slightest breath, while the voice of organized residents exposed the political dimensions of the abandonment. In an interview, Cali activist and volunteer Julián Álvarez recounted the ordeal he experienced from the moment of impact:

“We were in Buenaventura on the 10th floor. The earthquake was incredibly powerful; we could see the shipping containers near the ocean moving violently. When we learned that Cali had been destroyed, we became desperate to return. There were landslides and the road was closed, but we slipped through rural back roads. We arrived, put on work clothes, and went out to remove debris.”

Álvarez emphasized the painful contradiction between the state’s hypermilitarization and its paralysis in the face of human tragedy:

“For the president’s inauguration, 11,000 armed soldiers were brought in, and all of Cali was militarized. Today, at the collapse sites, there is only the civilian population—the people clearing debris—alongside firefighters and the Red Cross. To make matters worse, they imposed a curfew and sent traffic tow trucks to impound the rescuers’ motorcycles. It is ridiculous: instead of supporting the rescue effort, the government is obstructing it.”

Julián also denounced the geopolitical pettiness surrounding the management of international assistance and the restrictions imposed on Mexican rescue brigades:

“It is regrettable. The United Nations was waiting to activate the international appeal, but they did not do it. They only wanted to allow assistance from allied far-right governments, blocking countries with experience such as Mexico or Chile. And what happened with the Topos is terribly sad: they arrived on their own, with their travel paid for by an airline, and when they tried to enter, officials placed bureaucratic obstacles in their way, saying they did not have insurance. It is absurd when civilians are carrying out rescues with nothing. That is why we are working through civil disobedience, building direct networks with foundations to deliver medicine and food to places the state has never reached.”

Damaris’ Unbreakable Vocation in Pereira

While Cali boiled with political indignation on that same third day, Pereira faced its own inferno, with the region’s highest death toll. Walking through the downtown area evoked a horror movie, with buildings on both sides on the verge of collapse. Nevertheless, amid the devastated streets, physical pain did not prevent people from answering the call to serve.

Damaris Juliana Rojas Peñaloza, a young medical student in Cuba who was vacationing in her hometown, was struck by the earthquake’s fury and suffered severe injuries to her legs and right foot. Despite her injuries, she refused to leave ground zero and joined the relief lines with moving courage:

“I was in Pereira enjoying my vacation when this earthquake occurred, and I was among those affected, suffering injuries to my legs and right foot. But today, I want to say that although we were also affected, we remain standing and on the front lines, providing all our support to those harmed by the disaster in Pereira. As we are taught in Cuba, we must train as doctors of science and conscience, physicians prepared to serve even in the most difficult moments. And although we are injured, we are willing to help wherever we are needed most.”

State of Emergency, Rifles and Popular Resistance

By the fourth day, what arrived in the streets was not heavy machinery or large medical brigades, but the imposing coldness of firearms. Army troops descended on the affected perimeters. However, they did not bring shovels or pickaxes, but strict orders to cordon off the area, intimidate people and prevent photographic and journalistic documentation. As families continued to hear muffled blows beneath the concrete slabs, uniformed personnel guarded the ruins with high-powered weapons, more concerned with silencing protest and concealing negligence than with saving lives.

The political contrast could not have been crueler: while people in Chocó and the working-class neighborhoods of Valle del Cauca dug with their fingernails, local authorities attempted to control the media narrative. Cali Mayor Alejandro Eder tried to tour the disaster zones in search of the official photo opportunity, only to be driven out amid complaints from a community exhausted and outraged by his ineffectiveness.

The Defiant Dignity of Forgotten Neighborhoods

Faced with the state’s absence, the true humanitarian response emerged from sectors that have historically been disparaged. The most vulnerable neighborhoods of Cali and Pereira—usually criminalized and stigmatized by official discourse—became the beating heart of survival.

Without asking for anything in return, community kitchens sprang up in working-class neighborhoods. Low-income families set up makeshift stoves on street corners to feed volunteers, distributed water in large containers, obtained essential medical supplies and organized endless human chains to remove tons of debris. Solidarity did not emerge from government offices or affluent neighborhoods, but from the calloused hands of the working class.

Real Rescue Versus Tragedy Tourism

At the end of this five-day journey, the contradictions in the international response were laid bare on the ground:

The Resistance of the Topos Aztecas: The Mexican rescue brigade arrived in Colombia after paying for its own travel and tools. Far from receiving support, its members faced bureaucratic harassment, the threat of expulsion from the country and open resistance from the Cali Mayor’s Office. Despite the institutional obstacles, the Topos dug tunnels through the ruins to search for life where the local government sought to bring in heavy machinery to bury the traces of its own ineffectiveness.

Israeli “Earthquake Tourism”: In contrast, the delegation sent by the Israeli government staged a purely media-driven spectacle. Escorted by cameras and security details, the contingent walked through the collapse zones, engaging in what residents bitterly called “earthquake tourism”: they posed in front of the rubble for official bulletins and withdrew without moving a single stone or providing tangible relief to those affected.

Five days after that magnitude 7.4 roar, the dust is beginning to settle over the rubble of Cali and Pereira, but the social fracture remains exposed. This coverage documents not only the impact of a natural disaster, but also the anatomy of an absent regime that responds with rifles, curfews and bureaucracy, contrasted with the moral stature of humble people who, with bloodied hands and their dignity intact, once again lifted Colombia from the ruins.