47 days after the double earthquake in Venezuela, Abigail and Máximo experienced another one in Bogotá

Abigail Ramos opened her eyes as her bed moved and Bogotá wobbled at 7:34 in the morning on this August 10. She understood what was happening even without fully waking up. She knew the sensation, the sound of the glass from the windows, the creaking of the walls, the dizziness in her stomach, and the adrenaline rush. The same signs she experienced 47 days ago during the double earthquake, of 7.2 and 7.5 magnitude, that occurred in Venezuela, which surprised her in the shower at her family’s house in Pariata, La Guaira. This Monday, the earth was moving again, and memories of screams, trapped people, and debris flooded her again. On August 10, Colombia registered a seismic movement of 7.4 magnitude that has left at least 111 dead according to official figures published until 3 p.m. The earthquake shook several cities, including Cali, Medellín, and Bogotá. The most severe impact was concentrated in the west and the Coffee Axis, especially in departments like Risaralda, Caldas, Valle del Cauca, and Chocó. Colombian President Abelardo de la Espriella reported that there are also 87 injured, 1,575 affected homes, 37 completely destroyed, 61 collapsed buildings, and 52 educational facilities damaged. Abigail jumped up and woke everyone around her with screams. She had just arrived in the Colombian capital on August 7, hoping to find a job and help her family in the central Venezuelan coast, which is going through one of its worst social and economic crises in its contemporary history. After migrating, a friend offered her her house near 170th Street, and Abigail agreed to move temporarily. She did not expect to feel the same fear as in Pariata; she thought the house might fall on her. “I am with my friend and her family. We were all sleeping, then I felt the sway of things. Since I obviously come from a mode of alertness, I thought I was having a nightmare, but I saw that things kept moving and realized I was shaking. I got up and tried to warn everyone. I panicked because I come from La Guaira. I tried to stay calm. It was a long thing, it gave us a chance to grab our cell phones, and it was still shaking. We went out to the street, and the neighbors were in the same situation as me, very scared. It lasted a long time,” Ramos, a business administrator, told Efecto Cocuyo in a phone interview. After the earthquake, she returned to her friend's house and tried to calm down. Her phone was flooded with messages from her family trying to contact her. Ramos lamented not having said goodbye enough to the people she loves and that she didn’t really want to leave Venezuela, but the post-earthquake situation overwhelmed her completely. “I couldn’t help but remember the earthquake in Venezuela. At that moment (June 24), I was in the shower, and my mom, her husband, and my little dog were at home. We live in a neighborhood at street level, in Maiquetía, Pariata, literally facing the sea, on one side we have the airport, and on the other, the port. My house is two stories; I was downstairs (…) The magnitude of that earthquake was impressive, even though we didn’t lose anything in our house, we experienced it very strongly. We lost family members; my dad lost his wife because he lived toward the Caribbean side. We had days without power, cut off, in which the anxiety never stopped,” Ramos narrated. Among her recent memories is the image of her father, sunburned and full of saltpeter, desperately searching for his wife, who died in the collapse of a building near Naiguatá, on the Venezuelan coast. “During the earthquake in Venezuela, there was total misinformation. That added to our worries, to the ‘what’s going to happen now?, where are we going to find food?’ At first, everything was closed, there were looters, we couldn’t leave our houses because we were afraid of losing everything. It was hard, even though I didn’t lose my home. My dad lost his job, lost his wife, lost his house. It’s a series of things that you only understand when you live through them. How does my dad, my relative, who is my blood, face life after this? I decided to return to Bogotá because I can work here and send something so he can count on me,” Ramos explained. The earthquake in Colombia this Monday was felt intensely and for a prolonged period in the capital, leading to the preventive evacuation of numerous buildings and residences. According to local media, the Mayor’s Office and rescue agencies immediately activated review protocols. Preliminary reports indicate that there were no fatalities or serious structural damages in Bogotá. “The situation in La Guaira is not good, there aren’t many sources of income. Everything there is empty, sad, and desolate. So I came to Bogotá. I needed to leave because, in addition, a week before the earthquake, I had resigned from my job in La Guaira. I said ‘I will get back on track in Bogotá, what can happen?’ I am not mentally prepared yet because I never imagined this would happen here,” Abigail pointed out. From Caracas to Bogotá Máximo Ferro woke up with the trembling of the mattress and the sound of lamps swinging from side to side. He felt the world start to move violently and blinked quickly to wake himself up. The sharp scream of a seismic alarm pierced his ear. He didn’t stop to think much. In pajamas and with his shoes poorly on, he left the room, crossed the hallway, and ran down six flights of stairs to the lobby of Exe Bacatá 95, located in the northern part of Bogotá, with a cousin who came out half-naked in the middle of panic. It was seven thirty in the morning. Two months earlier, he had experienced a similar shake in the studio of a television channel in Caracas, 1,419 kilometers away. What were the chances that he would experience two major earthquakes in two different countries less than two months apart? he wondered in a video posted on his TikTok account a few minutes after the quake. Ferro, a Venezuelan influencer, told Efecto Cocuyo that during the earthquake, the Colombian anti-seismic alert was still sounding in the street. Additionally, reports on social media indicated that hundreds of people received an early notification on their Android phones. “I don’t know where the alarm was coming from in the city, and I didn’t even know it existed here in Latin America. The earthquake lasted quite a while, felt like two minutes, maybe a little more. Because during all that running, the movement continued, and when we got downstairs, about 30 seconds passed, and everything was still moving. We waited at least half an hour downstairs, expecting a aftershock. Since we experienced it before in Caracas, I think the feeling is completely different because you already know what could happen. The scare was greater, too many thoughts of ‘Why is this happening again?’ After half an hour, we went up to get our important belongings,” Ferro said in a phone interview this Monday. He clarified that he is making a stopover in Bogotá with the goal of returning to Caracas. On the other hand, he assured that the organization in Colombia was very different from what was perceived in Venezuela on June 24 and the following days: “First, the alarm alerts people and gives them a chance to understand what’s happening: you hear the alarm and understand it’s an emergency. Ten minutes later, many helicopters started flying over Bogotá, which I imagine is to assess the affected areas initially. From that point on, you saw action from the start. Then, through social media, you saw statements from the government, police forces, and firefighters making appropriate mobilizations,” Ferro explained. Likewise, the Colombian Geological Service (SGC) issued automatic, detailed technical bulletins within minutes. The National Unit for Disaster Risk Management (UNGRD) immediately activated Unified Command Posts (PMU). The government’s response was swift. Colombia hosts more than 2.8 million Venezuelans, making it the main recipient of this population in the world. So far, there is no official balance of how many compatriots have been affected by the earthquake. The general director of the SGC, Julio Fierro Morales, states that the seismic event is the “strongest” felt in the last decade in the neighboring country.