World Colombia earthquake survivors are reliving a nightmare from 1999: "You feel a sense of powerlessness" By Luis Giraldo Updated on: August 13, 2026 / 8:30 PM EDT / CBS News Add CBS News on Google Jahir Rodríguez knew what was happening when he saw thick, dark clouds forming near his home in western Colombia on Monday morning. Parts of his dear Pereira were crumbling. The urban planner and former professor also knows what happens next after a powerful earthquake devastates whole communities.
He sprang into action after a deadly 1999 quake in Armenia, about 30 miles away from his current home, that killed around 1,200 people. He did so again three days ago when a 7.4 magnitude earthquake struck the same region, killing at least 281 people and trapping hundreds under debris across several states. "You feel a sense of powerlessness," Rodríguez said as he recalled seeing glass shattering and water seeping through the cracked and fallen walls of shaken buildings."You will be here for years"Rodríguez, who is 68 and retired, learned how to respond to earthquakes after the disaster in Colombia's coffee region at the turn of the century.
He gained valuable insights from a delegation of Japanese responders who had faced a deadly quake in Osaka in 1995. "It is a mistake to think that you will be here for days or months," Rodríguez said they told him. "You will be here for years." Rodríguez, who also assisted after a major earthquake in Talca, Chile, in 2010, is referring to the encampments forming in parks across the city, a common sight after people lose their homes to natural disasters.
In Colombia, the new government, which took over just days before the quake, is helping set up the encampments, Rodríguez said. But that tactic may be shortsighted, he said, since people will remain displaced for years and need permanent living quarters now. He also says the primary concern right now is more dire.
"The first is to count people, the second is to organize them where they will be placed, and the third is the reconstruction plans," he said. Getting people to leave their uninhabitable homes is hard, Rodríguez said. He spent the day after Monday's earthquake visiting with a friend and fellow urban planner whose apartment building toppled onto others.
When he arrived, Rodríguez said, his friend would not move from the site out of fear that vandals would enter the building — something that was more prevalent after the 1999 quake. Toppled residential buildings in Pereira, Colombia, where Jahir Rodríguez assisted a day after the 7.4-magnitude earthquake that rocked the coffee region. Jahir Rodríguez "People are here in front of the sidewalk, watching their house," Rodríguez said with immense sadness.
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