Death toll in Colombian earthquake rise to 14, 65 injured

May 26, 2008, 16:39 GMT

Bogota - The number of dead in a weekend earthquake in central Colombia measuring 5.6 on the Richter scale rose to 14 by Monday, media reports said.

At least 65 people were injured.

The television channel Caracol cited Red Cross officials in Bogota updating the figures from the quake on Saturday, which affected some 9,000 people and was also felt in south-western Colombia.

The victims were killed by falling rocks and landslides that hit their vehicles on the road from Bogota to Villavicencio, the capital of Meta province.

The small towns of Quetame and Calvario, near Bogota, were particularly badly affected. In Quetame, 70 per cent of the buildings were damaged, and 363 buildings were destroyed. In Bogota and other cities, the earthquake caused residents to panic.

The earthquake, with an epicentre some 55 kilometres south-east of Bogota, occurred at a relatively shallow depth of 3.9 kilometres, making its effects more easily felt, authorities said.

There were at least three strong aftershocks.

At least 40 buildings collapsed in small towns near the epicentre.

In Bogota, two buildings - a shopping centre and a television station - caught fire. Other structures, including hotels, suffered cracks and telephone service was interrupted, Interior Minister Carlos Holguin said.

President Alvaro Uribe was surprised by the quake at a meeting in the city of Florida in the south-western Valle del Cauca province, and the gathering was interrupted, reports said.

Colombia lies in a region prone to earthquakes, where the Nazca plate and the South American plate come together. In 1999, 1,200 people died in a quake measuring 6.2 on the Richter scale.