Alicia (64 years old), a resident in Spain for 25 years, is in Cali spending part of her vacation at her mother's house, located on the sixth floor of a residential unit in the south of the Colombian city. It was around eight in the morning, she was about to go out to run some errands when suddenly the ground started shaking. "I thought: 'I'm getting dizzy'". Then, as she recounts in a conversation with EL MUNDO, everything started moving and the sound of the lamps was heard more intensely. "When the tremor got stronger, we said: 'this is it', because all the paintings were moving, drawers from the cabinets were coming out, and the walls were cracking. In fact, a piece of a corner fell. My mother was in the bathroom."
So far, 95 deaths have been reported in Cali, "Unfortunately, we have to report 95 deaths, that is the count for this morning. We have 949 injured people and 86 rescued individuals," said Cali's mayor, Alejandro Eder, who added that there are also "239 people trapped under the rubble, 56 collapsed buildings."
"When everything stopped, the power went out. The internet wasn't working either. The security guards came up to help the elderly because everyone had to be on the street in case of any aftershocks," explains Alicia. "They only briefly operated the elevator to help them descend," she adds. "Once on the street, we sat down, with chairs, all morning. There they gave us coffee because my mother hadn't had breakfast, and they also prepared an infusion. Many people had been caught sleeping."
"In the afternoon, with no water or electricity, we went to a friend's house, which is very close, because my mother couldn't go back up to her apartment. Nothing had happened there. Everything has been by areas, but many buildings near mine collapsed. One of them had a pool on the top floor." Traffic guards closed several streets where collapses had occurred, and not all traffic lights were working.
A volunteer makes a gesture during the search for survivors among the rubble of a collapsed house after the earthquake in Cali.Joaquín SarmientoAFP
"Yesterday morning [Monday] I was very nervous, and we didn't realize that the water had been cut off in our area. And when we went to buy, it was sold out. My neighbor drove me to buy soda because I didn't want to drive. However, by the afternoon, everything was calmer. Some supermarkets couldn't open because a beam had fallen, but those that could were serving without any issues. People were buying food," Alicia recounts.
Unable to sleep all night due to the fear of a possible aftershock, the main concern now is to find out if there is anyone alive under the rubble. "People are looking for a place to go," she adds.