Belfast-based Alejandra Arcila (28) became aware that a 7.4 magnitude earthquake hit her home country from her brother’s text message on Monday afternoon from where all of her family live.
She immediately rang her mother, finding her parents in shock at what had happened. They live in a city called Armenia, a coffee region, and lived through the last earthquake which destroyed the city in 1999.
“A lot of their emotional wellbeing is also really, really affected ... even though it’s a common occurrence, sadly for us. But never of this magnitude.”
She came to Ireland in 2020 and lives in Belfast. On Monday night, she was able to contact more of her family who live in Pareira which she was one of the most badly affected cities.
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“It’s probably the worst fear of anybody who migrates ... it’s always that fear of how soon can I get home?” She said it was a “very, very stressful situation”.
She said her parents told her they were going to look for her grandmother but could only update her that her family were all safe hours later.
She said during this time she was “just sitting and waiting on the edge”, adding that it was emotionally draining.
“Living through the aftermath of all these disasters that is completely heartbreaking ... lots of people, their whole lives changed.
“For those that maybe even just lost material things, it’s still everything that you’ve worked for your whole life, and then it’s gone, and where do you even start?”
There are “lots of cracks” at her parents’ home, but they have been able to move back in. Her brother could not return to his home due to the damage and he is staying with his parents.
She said they have no water, but her mother has some on reserve. Electricity returned on Monday evening to the area. She said people are used to evacuating in the city.
“When I was little, this was something we did so often.”
[ Colombia rescue efforts continue as earthquake death toll passes 160Opens in new window ]
Arcila said people remain on edge as the aftershocks have not hit yet. “Everybody knows this happens. But it hasn’t happened, so everybody’s on the edge waiting.”
She added that her friend’s family slept in a car park as it didn’t seem safe to return to their home.
She said there is very little information on some areas such as Choco, the epicentre of the earthquake. “It’s already a region where there’s big poverty,” she said, adding that there are “vulnerable communities” there.
Alejandro Gutierrez (44) said his family live in the cities most damaged by the earthquake: Manizales, Cali and Pereira. He has lived in Dublin for nine years and is married with two children.
He said his family is safe but there is damage to their homes adding that some are staying with other family members as they cannot return to their own homes.
He was collecting his children from a summer camp when his mother rang him with the news a “huge” earthquake had hit, and told him she was safe but that the situation was “still shaky”.
“It was probably the worst that she ever felt,” he said.
“Earthquakes are normal in Colombia,” he said, but he had never heard of an earthquake with such a magnitude there. He added that the length of the earthquake was “crazy”, lasting around four minutes.
Irishwoman Gillian Moore, who lives in Medellin in Colombia, has told of the shock she and her husband experienced when they received an alert about the earthquake in the western part of the country.
While not in the area where the earthquake occurred, she and her husband were concerned when they did not hear from his family in Pereira for 5½ hours after the earthquake.
Moore told RTÉ she had previously lived in Cali, which is an earthquake zone, and her husband had grown up close to a volcano so they knew the safety drill and to be aware of aftershocks.
Her sister-in-law told her how she had dropped her children at school when “everything started shaking” but that the school handled it very well.
“They’re out in the countryside, so they were very lucky. I think it’s more downtown Pereira that was really hit. And there’s a lot of older buildings and there are building regulations here since a lot of the bad earthquakes in the 80s and 90s.”
Moore, who has lived in Medellin for five years, said there was not much of an Irish community there.
“I know one or two other Irish here in Medellin and a couple of others around Colombia. But, in general, there’s not a large [Irish community].
“Maybe more with digital nomads now – people passing through – but living long term, I think it’s more concentrated in Bogotá in the capital.”
Moore said she and her husband were getting their emergency bag ready, which will be placed by the door. It contains food, clothes, flashlights, and “stuff like that, because that’s the biggest thing”.
“In a lot of the areas now they’re calling for flashlights and batteries and that’s because most places don’t have electricity or gas or anything like that now,” she added.
Irish journalist Ciara Carolan, who is based in Bogotá said that although she was 400km from the epicentre of the earthquake “we felt it really, really strongly here”.
“I was in an apartment on the 17th floor of a building and the entire thing kind of just started swaying,” she said. “Everyone went out on to the street. Everyone had evacuated their buildings because obviously everyone had felt it quite strongly.”
The Department of Foreign Affairs said it is “aware of and monitoring the situation.”
“While no Irish citizen has yet requested consular assistance, its officials, including those in the Irish Embassy to Colombia, stand ready to provide such support to any Irish citizen that requests it.”
It said it has provided advice to a “small number of citizens”.
