Reuters
[Source: Reuters]
Rescuers in Colombia raced to free survivors still trapped under the rubble on Friday, four days after one of the strongest earthquakes to hit the Andean nation in decades left hundreds of people dead or missing.
In Cali, Colombia’s third-largest city, rescue workers shifted shattered concrete after detecting sounds from a collapsed residential block early in the morning, suggesting people may still be alive – a rare sign of hope as the emergency response shifted to the grim task of accounting for the missing.
“We’ll keep going as long as God permits, as long as we have the strength,” said 67-year-old Julio Cesar Pineda, a volunteer who grabbed his gloves and hard hat to join the rescue efforts when the wall of his Pereira home fell down.
Venezuelan rescuers who arrived in Pereira, deep in Colombia’s coffee-growing region, after searching for survivors from the devastating quakes that hit their country’s Caribbean coast just seven weeks ago, told Reuters they still had hope and had found people alive as many as 10 days later.
Efforts in the city concentrated on a collapsed hotel that rescue workers believed might still hold survivors – including Juan Felipe Giraldo, 24, who was set to get married that weekend. His father was at the site from Monday night, waiting for news.
