Colombia's deadliest earthquake since 1999 was 110 kilometres deep, and that spread the damage

The earthquake that struck western Colombia at 07:34 local time on 10 August 2026 was not a shallow rupture. United States Geological Survey data for the event give a moment magnitude of 7.4, an origin time of 12:34:28 UTC, an epicentre 5 kilometres south of San Jose del Palmar in Choco department, and a depth of 110.3 kilometres. The USGS attributes it to strike slip faulting within the subducting Nazca plate beneath South America, and notes that earthquakes at intermediate depth typically affect broader regions than shallower events of similar size, even though the shaking directly above them is less intense. That single parameter explains the pattern of the disaster. About 10.5 million people experienced strong to very strong shaking, and the agency issued a red alert.

Depth was not agreed at first. The Servicio Geologico Colombiano put it at approximately 100 kilometres in its early bulletins, and Univision carried an initial figure of 82 kilometres on the day, later updated to 96 kilometres in a bulletin from the Colombian survey. Magnitude is not agreed either: the Colombian survey and the Global Centroid Moment Tensor project both put the event at 7.5 rather than the USGS figure of 7.4. The Colombian survey described the event as the strongest recorded in the country in the last decade, exceeding a magnitude 6.3 event at Paratebueno in Cundinamarca in 2025.

The damage did not cluster around Choco. By 11 August, at least 40 deaths had been reported in Pereira in Risaralda, 35 in Cali, nine in Choco itself, two in Caldas and one in Antioquia. Cali sits about 280 kilometres south west of Bogota and roughly a similar distance from the epicentre. Around 1,600 buildings had been damaged or destroyed, including a historic cathedral in Manizales. The upper floors of a major Cali hospital collapsed, and 600 patients were treated outdoors on rubble strewn streets. Twenty one aftershocks were recorded by late on the first day, and more than 100 in all, the largest of them magnitude 5.0.

Quindio, a department the epicentre is not usually thought of as reaching, gives the clearest measure. In Armenia, the departmental capital, the government secretary Carlos Arturo Ramirez reported 240 homes affected and 174 people injured with no deaths on the day itself, five buildings collapsed, damage to the control tower and runway at El Eden airport, and a curfew from 7pm on 10 August to 5am on 11 August. Three days later the governor of Quindio, Juan Miguel Galvis, put the department's total at more than 10,000 homes damaged, 330 people injured and one death, with 70 per cent of educational institutions affected, more than 550 commercial premises damaged in Armenia, and two hospitals evacuated. A department with one confirmed death had ten thousand damaged houses.

The toll rose unevenly and the counting bodies did not agree. Al Jazeera reported more than 200 dead and 2,595 injured on 12 August. On the same day, Colombia's Instituto Nacional de Medicina Legal y Ciencias Forenses said it had received 180 bodies from Choco, Caldas, Risaralda and Valle del Cauca and had identified 93 of 181 dead, among them two minors aged eight and 17, 55 women and 36 men. Wikipedia's current events log for 10 August recorded at least 288 deaths, and its article on the earthquake gives at least 294 killed and more than 3,900 injured, describing it as the deadliest earthquake in Colombia since 1999.

The missing figure needs care. Al Jazeera reported on 11 August that more than 2,700 people had been listed as missing on citizen run websites by that night, and stated explicitly that the figure had not been officially confirmed. It is a count of reports, not a count of people.

President Abelardo de la Espriella had been in office for three days when it happened, having taken the oath on 7 August 2026. He went to the headquarters of the national disaster management unit, the UNGRD, to run the response, and cancelled a two day agenda in La Guajira set for 12 and 13 August. Interior Minister Rodrigo Lara said the government was activating rescue and disaster response teams, with cranes and rescuers from Bogota and aircraft from Antioquia. The president declared a state of emergency and three days of national mourning, and promised rent subsidies for families who lost their homes. The United States committed 15.5 million dollars and deployed search and rescue teams from Virginia and California, the European Union pledged 2.3 million dollars, El Salvador sent two aircraft carrying 100 tonnes of aid, and Mexico offered search and health personnel.

Several questions are open. The final death toll is not settled and the counts published by ministries, the forensic institute and news organisations were still diverging a week on. No reconciled figure for the missing exists. The economic loss has not been fixed by any authority this article could verify, beyond the red economic alert the USGS attached to the event, and estimates circulating in secondary compilations vary by more than an order of magnitude. It is also not yet established how much of the damage in Cali, Pereira and Manizales reflects the depth of the source and how much reflects local soil conditions and building stock.