“In these moments of mourning and pain, Colombians must remain more united and whole than ever. I call on all of you, without exception, to collaborate with our compatriots who have been victims of the earthquake. I am convinced that, once again, we will know how to demonstrate our strength and solidarity. The government has taken all measures at its disposal to help the victims and will do everything necessary to rebuild the affected cities. We know that we are not alone in this difficult task. All the people of Colombia accompany us in it“said the president in a predictable speech full of commonplaces, which seemed almost copied from an imaginary manual of speeches for political leaders in the face of natural disasters.
When Julio César Turbay Ayala – the president in question – appeared in front of the television cameras, shortly before noon on Wednesday, December 12, 1979, the majority of his compatriots still did not know the true extent of the tremor that had shaken that morning. the country’s coastline. Only days later the balance of the catastrophe would be established with relative precision: more than 450 dead, half a thousand missing, around fifteen thousand injured, some two hundred thousand people homeless and material losses amounting to hundreds of millions of dollars.
The doors of hell that lived inside the Earth opened at three in the morning, when most Colombians were sleeping. According to the records of the Seismological Institute of Quito, Ecuador, it was actually a succession of three strong tremors, with an epicenter 640 kilometers south of Bogotá. The first occurred at 2:59 in the morning, the second at 3:02 and the last two minutes later.
The true intensity of the earthquake was a matter of discussion for months: while in Quito the seismographs recorded a magnitude of 7.1 degrees on the Richter scale, those at the Geophysical Institute of Vienna – much more distant, but also with more precise instruments – indicated 8.1, one more degree. The director of the Geophysical Institute of Los Andes, priest Jesús Emilio Ramírez, left the numbers aside and tried to make himself understood by the public. “The energy released by this tremor was greater than that of November 23,” he told reporters. He was referring to an earthquake that had occurred just three weeks earlier, which had left 44 dead, some five hundred injured, and material losses estimated at more than one hundred million dollars.
Beyond the debate over the intensity, the cause of the earthquake was determined by the Canadian Seismological Institute, whose experts reported that it had opened at the bottom of the Pacific Ocean. Additionally, they issued a worrying warning: “The tremors may continue until it closes,” they said.
The inhabitants of Tumaco and El Charco, two cities bordering Ecuador, knew little or nothing about this information and estimates. They were simply experiencing the disaster, because it was there where the earthquake hit with greatest intensity. For them, the magnitude of the earthquake was measured on a scale that began with surprise and panic, continued with the death of family members, neighbors and friends, and continued with the desperate task of rescuing people trapped under the rubble. The two communities were isolated from the rest of the country, with all services destroyed, living an endless spiral of hunger, thirst and scorching heat.
After the earthquake, the army tried to send several rescue squads to the site of the disaster, which left from Cali and Bogotá, but it was useless: those affected could not be helped or rescued because the roads were blocked and it was very difficult to send helicopters and boats. This made entire towns became cemeteries.
In many cases, the military was able to arrive when it was too late. “We had to go out and kill dogs,” navy captain Darío Márquez said upon his return to Bogotá, “to prevent them from getting into the ruins and eating the corpses or attacking the people who were still trapped, but alive. It looked like a horror movie. While some of us dedicated ourselves to removing debris, organizing field hospitals and preventing looting, which fortunately did not occur, others had to use their weapons to sacrifice the animals, which were desperate, out of control. The situation worsened as the days went by, when we realized that in some populations that had been isolated, there were people very sick from having eaten dogs and cats. “I think some of those dogs had eaten decomposing corpses before… You can’t imagine what that was like.”
Twelve hours after the earthquake, Dora Urrego, Civil Defense coordinator of El Pasto, another of the affected towns, made a dramatic assessment of the situation: “This catastrophe destroyed a quarter of the Colombian territory. Here everything is misery, death and desolation. The lack of communication has also prevented us from expediting the sending of rescue groups, food and medicine,” he reported.
The desperate situation was also crudely described by a radio journalist from the network Two partswho told from Tumaco how hundreds of people wandered the streets looking for survivors and trying to get water. “Anguish and hunger are causing the looting of the few warehouses that remain standing, and those that have collapsed as well, as people make their way through the rubble looking for a can of preserves… There is not even water left to drink,” story.
The catastrophic effects of the earthquake were enhanced by a tsunami in the Pacific that made the San Juan islet disappear and swallowed the two hundred people – fishing families – who lived there.
The coastal town of Tumaco was devastated. The next day, the first journalists who were able to reach the area began sending dispatches with heartbreaking testimonies from the survivors. “Tied to the stretcher in a field hospital, Mónica Delmar Sabogal no longer wants to live. He has tried to kill himself by removing the cannula through which he is given serum. She tried it twice until the doctor gave the order to tie her up. She is not interested in continuing to live, someone has told her that her mother died during the earthquake. Mónica lived alone with her, there is no one left in the world“said the cable from the envoy of an international agency that was reproduced in Argentina by the evening newspaper The reason.
“They have just identified a man, his name was Julio Martínez,” the chronicle continued. Next to him they have left two other bodies covered by a tarp. They are smaller, they look like children. The soldier guarding them says that they are the man’s two children. He says that when they were walking along Commerce Street in search of shelter, after the earthquake, a lighting column fell on them and the three died instantly.”
The article, which arrived from Temuco to Bogotá carried by the pilot of a military helicopter, ended like this: “Temuco no longer exists. Only the skeletons of a few houses remain standing. In the improvised Civil Defense center, a simple tent set up in the square, no one wants to talk about numbers, but the dead are counted in the dozens. The few doctors who have arrived do not rest trying to save the lives of the injured that the rescue brigades or the neighbors themselves have removed from the rubble. At the time of sending this dispatch, night is approaching and the feeling floats in the air that with the lights of day, increasingly weaker, the hopes of rescuing more survivors will also disappear.”
Another chronicle, published days later, reported on a “true miracle,” that of the eight members of the Quiñones family, who saved their lives after the great wave of the tsunami rushed onto the coast and destroyed their house.
Luis Quiñones, his wife and six children lived from fishing and lived in a house built on a floor of logs supported by piles on the beach, near Tumaco. Every morning, with the sunrise, Luis and his five older children would get into two boats and go out into the sea to fish with an old net that they would then drag to the beach with the fish they could catch. Later, the entire family would clean the fish and prepare it to take to the town, where they would sell it or exchange it for basic necessities.
In the early morning of December 12, Luis was already awake when he felt the earth shake. The house wavered on the piles, but did not collapse because they were well sunk in the sand. Everyone woke up, scared, but stayed where they were. No one tried to leave the house and that saved them. “Seconds later a giant wave invaded the coast, sweeping away everything in its path. This time the Quiñones house did not resist. The force of the water broke the piles as if they were toothpicks, but the floor boards were well tied and held without coming loose,” the article says.
The story, told in this way, seems like a work of fiction so exaggerated that it is incredible, but the chronicler, in addition to taking note of the story that Luis Quiñones himself gave him, confirmed the last part with the crew members of the Colombian navy boat that He rescued them from the sea. The wave played with the floor of the house, but could not destroy it and the twelve members of the family remained clinging to the floorboards, turned into a raft. They were found three hundred meters from the coast, barely hurt, almost unharmed..
Although they lost everything they had except their lives, the nightmare was over for the Quiñones, but the entire Colombia remained in suspense for almost a month, not only because of the endless tasks of rescuing bodies but because the great earthquake was followed by numerous aftershocks that renewed panic again and again.
