Colombia Passport

When there was the earthquake of Haiti on last January 12, Chile was among the first countries to participate in the international help to the impoverished Caribbean nation that was completely destroyed. As most of us around the globe, the Chileans were shocked by the images of Haitian victims rescued from the rubble in Port-au-Prince. They did not suspect that a month after, on February 27, Chile would endured at even stronger earthquake.

Photo: Puracé Volcano, near Popayán, from wikimedia.

Where will be the next? Are we prepared for a calamity like it? This is the question that countries like Colombia should answer and be ready, because we, as Chile, live at the edge of the Nazca and South America plates.

Earthquakes like the Haitian and Chilean, make us to study the natural phenomena very well. With the pass of days we forget the subject – less in the countries that suffered the consequences – but the plates continue their permanent and imperceptible movement one against the other until they broke in a disaster.

We Colombians are very proud of our strategic position at the crossroad of the Western Hemisphere. We are the only South American country with coasts in both oceans. We are the more northern land of the sub-continent and the place where the natural Central American geological bridge connects to the North American region.

But we are also at the center of four geological factors: Nazca, Pacific, Caribbean and South American plates. It makes us more than a very strategic site for international congresses, a spot susceptible of hecatombs worst than the Concepción´s earthquake!

The fact should not be published to create panic of course. We are obliged to study it very well in order to prevent tragedies. The same for countries like Peru and Ecuador, our southern neighbors that share with us the eternal kiss of the Nazca plate on our sunny beaches of the Pacific.

We have to know for example that Bogotá is 2,600 meters above the sea level thanks to the Nazca plate. It is possible that over the next million years our capital will continue its slow and millimeter growing to the sky, because the plate is moving into our South American soil at a velocity of 3.7 centimeters per year. If our aboriginal ancestors called the Andes ranges as our mother mountains, the Nazca plate is our grandmother, because it is the one that created our proud mountains from the Andean Venezuela to the heights of Chile and Argentina. The Andes ranges are nothing more than a  land upheaval caused by the intrusion of the plate below South America. According to the geologist, Nazca is the fasting moving plate over the earth. It will make that Asia is every second nearer to South America, while the Andes will continue with minor, middle and big earthquakes and volcanoes for the next million centuries.

It is possible an earthquake like the Chile in Colombia

You do not need to be a geologist to conclude that Colombia has the same probabilities of an earthquake of the same proportions of the one in Chile. Furthermore, we have several volcanoes ready to vomit giant rocks over many towns.

After the earthquake that destroyed the Chilean city of Concepción, thousands of miles at the south of our country, the seismographs registered five minor earthquakes in our territory!

1. Tuesday, March 1, 3.2 m.m.s. earthquake in Chocó, the state of the northern Pacific coast of Colombia.
2. Wednesday, March 2, 05:02 am, earthquake in Bucaramanga and other in the north of the Valle del Cauca state: two in a single day.
3. Thursday, March 3, again the northern Pacific of Colombia trembled, Chocó in the morning. The same day a second one of 4.6 m.m.s. in the Western of Colombia, again, at the side of the Nazca plate.

History of earthquakes in Colombia

The report of the 1785 earthquake in Bogotá, published in Gazeta de Santa Fe, the first printed news in Colombia.

The territory that was going to be Colombia, registered earthquakes and volcano activity since ancient times. According with Fray Pedro Simón in his chronicles of the 17th century, the city of Cajicá was destroyed by an earthquake in 1617. Many others have been well recorded in the archives of the Colombian history and even the intention of predict them, like the one of Rev. Francisco Margallo who said in a poem of him:

´El 31 de agosto de un año que no diré

Sucesivos terremotos destruirán a Santa Fé´

The 31rst of August of a year that I will not say, succeeding earthquakes will destroy Santa Fe.

If the earthquake of Chile was amazingly long (one minute and half), we Colombians should not forget that Bogotá suffered an earthquake of four minutes! It was on July 12, 1785 at o7:45:00. The colonial buildings of the time were destroyed, like the Convent of Saint Francis, the Convent of Santo Domingo, the Guadalupe church and the Cathedral, at the time the biggest buildings of the Spaniard colonial capital that was known as Santa Fe de Bogotá. The earthquake not only created a conscience that new buildings should be done thinking in this kind of phenomenon, but it originated the first Colombian news ever published, where there was a report over the earthquake. For this reason I can say that the 1785 earthquake of old Santa Fé was the father of journalism in Colombia!

The testimonies of that earthquake are kept in the General Archives of the Nation, with several events and the historical Aviso del terremoto.

El Pais newspaper of Cali registered the earthquake of Popayán.

The first earthquake of the Republican era was at 11:15 on May 18, 1875 and it had a magnitude of 7.3 m.m.s. The epicenter of the earthquake was the city of Cúcuta and the region was completely destroyed. The earthquake was registered in Bogotá and Caracas as well. The number of deathly victims is not sure, but some historians argued that it could be near 1,000 deaths. In a century that Colombia was almost as it is Haiti today, the earthquake of Cúcuta was a real tragedy.

On March 31, 1983, the city of Popayán, southwest of Colombia, was completely destroyed by an earthquake and 200 persons were reported death. The destruction of the ancient Spaniard city was a real sadness, because it kept buildings as old as the 17th century. Popayán is one of the oldest European settlement in the Americas. The support of Spain especially helped in the reconstruction of beautiful Popayán that is very near to the Puracé Volcano.

The other tragic earthquake in Colombia to be remembered was the 1999 of Armenia on Monday, January 25 at 13:19 the first of 14, with an intensity of 6.4 m.m.s. About 1000 persons lost their lives in the city. At 17:40:18 was other with 5.4 m.m.s. On January 29 at 23:33 one with 4.2 m.m.s and two days later, on 31, an earthquake of 3.5 m.m.s.

Is Colombia well prepared to face an earthquake?

It is possible to predict a typhoon and a volcano activity, but not an earthquake. However, it is possible to detect the regions at permanent risk. The first prevention comes from our planners. How are we building in our modern cities? It is not only for huge cities like Bogotá, Medellín, Cali, Barranquilla, Cartagena and Cúcuta. It is also for middle and small towns wide the country. Especially housing should be well prepared to face a strong movement of the unpredictable earth.

The second is the aptitude of the people. The role of the media, the educative national formation, the schools, the families, should talk very often that we live in a country that is prone to earthquakes and that they can be destructive. Most of our Colombian cities and regions are in a risky zone for earthquakes. If it is easy for official planners to determine the type of material in construction, private initiatives should be controlled before the people start any work to make their houses. Any constructor should do a study of the soil and the possibility of an earthquake.

The other question has to see with the rescuers and equipments for a possible natural tragedy in our cities and regions. What we have, how is the conditions of the roads, where is the nearest airport, how we can give shelter to thousands of families in an eventual earthquake, how can we prevent looting. how can we guarantee that the telecommunications will continue working to keep us in contact with the rest of the world, how the people will react in the middle of such natural phenomena (panic must be also educated, especially with children.)

A country like Colombia should be of course an expert in earthquakes, but reality is far from it. According to Jorge Salazar, a civil engineer, in an interview by LaPatria.com, the 95 % of the buildings in our Colombian cities are not following the security to prevent any earthquake. He said that any building constructed against earthquake, do not collapse and this fact, evidently reduces the number of deathly victims.

Every family should be prepared as well: things that can be prom to fall, should be moved to a safer place. At the same time, every house should keep well its kit of emergency with basic medicines for first aid, water, lights, radio, documents of identity and property of the house. It is not a joke… the next big earthquake could be in Colombia.