AILSA CHANG, HOST:
The death toll from the powerful earthquake that hit western Colombia on Monday now stands at almost 200 people. But hundreds are still missing, with many people trapped under the rubble of collapsed buildings. In Cali, the country's third largest city and the one hardest hit by the quake, authorities have imposed a nighttime curfew to prevent looting while Colombia's new president has traveled there to assess the damage. We go now to reporter John Otis in Bogota. Hi, John.
JOHN OTIS, BYLINE: Hello.
CHANG: So this was a really strong earthquake, magnitude 7.4. Can you just give people a sense of how widespread the damage is as it looks now?
OTIS: Well, Colombia's two largest cities, Bogota and Medellín, were spared, but the quake struck towns and villages from the Pacific Coast Department of Choco all the way to the coffee-growing region in the Andes Mountains. Hardest hit were the provincial capitals of Pereira and Manizales as well as Cali, which is home to 2 million people. Right now, the race is on to locate people underneath the rubble because the chances of survival are just so much better if you can reach them within the first 72 hours.
CHANG: Yeah.
OTIS: Emergency workers and volunteers are streaming into Cali, where authorities say that hundreds could still be trapped inside the dozens of buildings that collapsed. The U.S. has said it will send more than $15 million to Colombia, and Mexico, Argentina, Brazil and other countries have also pledged help
CHANG: OK. And we understand that many hospitals have been damaged, right?
OTIS: Exactly. And this is really bad news because, in the face of such disasters, so many people require medical care. This morning in a local radio interview, Cali Mayor Alejandro Eder gave this update on the situation.
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ALEJANDRO EDER: (Speaking Spanish).
OTIS: So Eder is describing how the main public hospital in Cali, which takes in patients from all over the region, collapsed. All told, he says 14 hospitals were damaged. They're still operating, but they're overflowing with patients because more than 1,000 people in Cali were injured.
CHANG: Well, this earthquake is now a huge challenge for Colombia's new president - right? - who was just sworn in four days ago. How is he navigating all of this right now?
OTIS: Well so far he seems to be doing OK. Colombians rallying around President Abelardo de la Espriella, and this is especially important because de la Espriella just barely won the presidential election. He won it by less than one percentage point. But in the coming weeks, this earthquake is going to be a very high-profile test of de la Espriella's ability to govern because he's never before held elected office. Also, he's managing a huge fiscal deficit and has promised budget cuts, so it's unclear how much aid his government is going to be able to send to the disaster zone.
CHANG: Well, John, I am very curious, because you were in Venezuela covering twin earthquakes that struck just in late June. How does that disaster compare to Colombia's earthquake, you think?
OTIS: Well, in Venezuela, the epicenter of those twin quakes was much closer to the Earth's surface, which made them far more devastating. More than 6,000 Venezuelans were killed. The other big difference is that Colombia's government is really trying to help while Venezuela's authoritarian regime often hindered search and rescue efforts. For example, I talked to a Venezuelan contractor who was trying to bring in a jackhammer to the earthquake zone. You need these to break up rubble and to search for survivors, but authorities demanded that he show them a government permit and a bill of sale for the jackhammer, so it took him a full two days to reach the disaster zone.
CHANG: Wow.
OTIS: By contrast, just this morning, Cali's mayor publicly thanked the Colombian government for sending him even more rescue workers than he asked for.
CHANG: That is John Otis, reporting from Colombia. Thank you so much, John.
OTIS: Thank you. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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