Rescuers in Pereira, Colombia are racing to free four people from a collapsed hotel nearly four days after a 7.4-magnitude earthquake centered in San Jose del Palmar killed 287 people and injured almost 4,000. Venezuelan rescue teams, fresh from responding to twin quakes on their own coast seven weeks earlier, are assisting with thermal imaging equipment.
Cali and Pereira together account for more than two-thirds of the dead, with tens of thousands of homes damaged or destroyed and many Colombians now sleeping in shelters or outdoors. The UN refugee agency warned the disaster could displace people already uprooted by conflict and migration, in a country where roughly nine million already depend on humanitarian aid.
Authorities have recorded numerous aftershocks, complicating both the search through unstable rubble and residents' return to damaged buildings. All but one airport had resumed operations as of Friday.
The full dispatch is available from the source below.