The morning of Aug. 10 seemed like any other. Some people were getting ready for work, others were waiting for breakfast, and some were already on the job. No one imagined that, just minutes later, their lives would change forever.
A 7.4-magnitude earthquake — centered in the municipality of San José del Palmar, in the Chocó department — shook much of western Colombia and left a particularly painful mark on Pereira, where numerous homes and buildings were damaged.
For 60-year-old John Jairo Aristizábal, 78-year-old Rubén Darío Mejía Delgado and 50-year-old Paula Peña, that morning did not end when the ground stopped moving. For them, a new struggle began: surviving, finding their relatives, salvaging what remained of their homes, and figuring out how to start over when practically everything was gone.
John Jairo: a mass, a decision, and a life saved
John Jairo Aristizábal was ready to head out on his bicycle. It was a morning set aside for exercise, but before leaving, he turned on the television. Mass was being broadcast.
He decided to stay and listen. The religious service had barely begun when the shaking started; at first, it was mild, but then the earth began to shudder with such force that his house turned into a trap.
Aristizábal lived in the Providencia neighborhood of Pereira with his mother, 81-year-old Damaris López.
Thinking the metal gates might jam and trap him inside, he ran toward the exit, passing his mother’s room and urging her to come out. But when he opened the main gate, he didn’t see her behind him.
He went back. He found her unable to walk. “I can’t move,” his mother told him. Aristizábal went back in for her. He picked her up and managed to get her out of the house. Just as he stepped onto the sidewalk, the unthinkable happened.
The house collapsed behind them; dust covered everything. Mother and son were coated in white dust, but López was alive.
Aristizábal had managed to get his mother out just seconds before the house came crashing down. Yet, as he tried to process the fact that they were both alive, he heard a question that would turn into a nightmare.
“The little Black one, the little Black one — where is the little Black one?” López asked. It was her other son.
Juan Carlos Aristizábal, 62, John Jairo’s brother, lived in one of the apartments beneath the family home. Three floors had collapsed on top of him.
John Jairo began searching for him, calling out again and again, but there was no answer.
A woman was also trapped in another apartment. She did respond to the calls of those searching for survivors. Neighbors began clearing away the rubble with their bare hands.
The woman was rescued alive around 4 p.m., after having been trapped since approximately 7:45 a.m. However, she died while being transported to a clinic.
John Jairo’s wait for his brother continued; his mother remained seated facing the rubble, praying to God that her son would be found.
Finally, with the help of volunteers, professional rescue workers, and heavy machinery, they began removing concrete, steel and debris. They found Juan Carlos, but he had died of asphyxiation.
For John Jairo, the earthquake didn’t just bring down his house. It took his brother and left his 81-year-old mother to bear the pain of losing one of her children. Today, both are staying at an aunt’s house, just a block away from where their home used to be. They have no home and none of their belongings, but they possess something John Jairo emphatically reiterates: the hope of starting over.
Rubén Darío and Victoria: Surviving as the building collapsed
A few kilometers away, in the La Lorena residential complex, 78-year-old Rubén Darío Mejía Delgado was waiting for breakfast.
He was in the dining room with his wife, 73-year-old Victoria Eugenia Ramírez Mejía, when the shaking began.
Rubén Darío told his wife that the ground was shaking. Victoria, more agitated, immediately ran out and headed down from the building. He decided to wait a few seconds, until the movement became unbearable.
Then he ran. He did so in his pajamas. By the time he managed to get out of the building, the structure began to collapse.
It did not fall to the side; it collapsed vertically. Rubén Darío felt part of the structure strike his back. A window shattered, and the flying glass caused wounds on his arm and chest.
Even so, he managed to run to a wire fence and cling to it. He couldn’t see his wife; dust had covered everything. But he could hear her — she was calling out to him.
For nearly two minutes, as he recalls, the ground didn’t stop moving. “As if we were in a blender,” he describes.
All around, the scenes looked like something out of a disaster movie: buildings swaying, water tanks toppling, windows shattering, and people running and screaming. There were 15 apartment blocks in the La Lorena complex. All of them were affected.
Rubén Darío’s apartment was completely destroyed. The third-floor unit where he lived ended up practically at ground level. The staircases vanished, and the entrance was buried under debris.
But he and Victoria survived. There were no fatalities in their specific block, though other buildings were not as lucky.
Rubén Darío remembers people trapped and crying out for help. Some couldn’t get out because the staircases had collapsed.
After the emergency passed, he managed to reunite with his wife. They had survived, but their home was gone.
They were unable to salvage almost anything. Now, they are staying temporarily with relatives while waiting for a solution for those displaced by the disaster.
Rubén Darío has already been included in the official registry of those affected, but his life — like that of hundreds of families from La Lorena — remains suspended amidst the rubble and uncertainty.
Paula: A mother’s fear of finding her son
For 50-year-old Paula Peña, the earthquake began far from home. She was working as a treasurer at the Ciudad Boquilla Educational Institution.
Her office was on the second floor. When the shaking started, she and her colleagues began to evacuate.
At first, they could walk. Then, the earthquake intensified. The children could no longer stay on their feet.
Paula remembers the anguish of watching them stagger while she, along with teachers, coordinators, and administrators, urged them to sit down to prevent them from falling.
But even as she helped the students, a worry tormented her. Her son, Miguel, was also at school — but at a different campus, far away from her. When the shaking stopped, Paula went back up to her office, grabbed her bag, locked up, and ran out.
She was wearing high heels that day; she lost them while running and ended up walking barefoot.
The city was in chaos. Supermarkets, hotels, and homes had sustained damage, and the roads were practically blocked.
There was no public transport available until a motorcycle appeared. The driver asked for 50,000 pesos to take her to her neighborhood — a price far higher than usual. Paula agreed.
She needed to get there and find out what had happened to her son. Ultimately, she decided to go to her mother’s place first.
From there, she tried to reach her own apartment; she went up with her nephew, but upon arriving at the building, she was met with a grim reality.
Her apartment was on the fifth floor; her nephew had already reached it and started shouting: “Auntie, your apartment has collapsed!”
The door was jammed; several neighbors rushed over, and a group of about five people managed to move it and clear away the debris.
When Paula entered, she found her life buried in rubble. The concrete slab that had held the water reserve tanks for years had collapsed. One of the tanks had fallen, and the structure had crashed right into her apartment.
Her refrigerator was crushed beneath a concrete block. The washing machine had been struck by a massive chunk of the slab. The microwave, blender, and other appliances were destroyed.
Her bed, sofa, televisions, furniture — practically everything she had built up over the years — lay beneath the debris.
But the most important thing remained: finding Miguel. The streets were blocked, and there was no vehicle access to the school.
Then, a nephew borrowed a bicycle, went to get him, and returned with Miguel riding along. Mother and son were reunited. Paula could finally breathe.
But that same night, they had to sleep in the lower level of a restaurant located on the ground floor of her mother’s building. They were afraid of aftershocks.
The next day, another battle began: registering as a disaster victim. The process was not simple. She had to travel to the Pereira Fire Department to handle the paperwork.
Afterwards, she returned very cautiously to the residential complex where she lived. The building had been declared uninhabitable by the authorities, and aftershocks were still causing debris to fall.
Although some assessments indicated that certain structural elements were in good condition, Paula no longer feels safe returning.
And there is another problem: she was a renter. The apartment’s owner lives abroad and will have to decide what happens to the property.
In the meantime, Paula needs to find another place to live, but rental prices have skyrocketed since the earthquake.
What previously might have cost around 1.5 million pesos per month can now reach 2.2 or 2.3 million. In other words, the cost rose from about $300 a month to nearly $900.
For a woman living on her wages, that difference is impossible to cover.
Three stories, one shared need
John Jairo lost his home and his brother. Rubén Darío lost the apartment where he lived with his wife. Paula lost her rental home, her furniture, her appliances, her clothes, and practically all her material possessions; her son was left with nothing but the clothes he was wearing that day.
Three people, three different stories, one shared tragedy and need: starting over.
Today, official and community aid is moving forward through various channels, yet individual needs remain immense.
Those wishing to lend a hand can contact them directly via WhatsApp:
• John Jairo Aristizábal: +57 312 256 0340
• Rubén Darío Mejía Delgado: +57 315 734 8381
• Paula Peña: +57 324 650 2615