More than 1,000 killed in Colombian quake

ARMENIA, Colombia, Jan 26 (AFP) — A massive earthquake in Colombia's Andes mountains killed "more than 1,000" people in Quindio, one of five affected provinces, a Quindio provincial authority said today. "We estimate that the number of fatal victims will be more than 1,000 just in Quindio," said Piedad Correal, the Quindio provincial government's ombudsman.

A residential neighbourhood in Armenia, 110 miles, west of the capital of Colombia, Bogota is destroyed after an earthquake on Monday. AP/PT

President Andres Pastrana's office had earlier put the number of dead at 517 but said that it expected the toll to rise.

The force of the quake smashed open crypts and sent old skulls and bones spilling out of a graveyard in the town of Cajamarca, in Central Tolima province, television showed.

The regional capital of Armenia, nestled high in the Andes mountains, was the worst-hit in a disaster zone that spanned five provinces and wrecked some 20 cities and towns.

Citizens in this provincial capital of Quindio province spent the afternoon scrapping away with their bare hands or with shovels in a desperate bid to free survivors from the wreckage of concrete and twisted metal.

But by nightfall most stood dejected and exhausted in the half-glow of impromptu camp fires lit in the rubble-filled streets as the sound of wailing ambulance sirens filled the cold mountain air.

Television footage from Pereira, capital of neighbouring Risaralda province, showed rescue workers pulling partially clothed bodies of victims from beneath the ruins as fires, which broke out in the aftermath of the quake, devoured the remains of buildings.

"We're overwhelmed by the magnitude of this earthquake," said Alberto Parra, head of Colombia's civil defence network.

Officials declared a dusk-to-dawn curfew in both cities to allow rescue teams to work unhampered and the military set up an emergency field hospital and rushed in army ambulances from the southwest city of Cali to attend the wounded.

Authorities cut off all but essential power supplies, fearing that electricity could spark further fires in damaged buildings.

The tremor caused numerous landslides along the main routes leading in and out of Quindio and Risaralda provinces, authorities said.

The national coffee growers' federation said it had no immediate reports of damage to Colombia's prized coffee crop, the country's number two export earner, but conceded phone communications to much of the quake-hit area had crashed.

Colombia's national seismological institute, however, said yesterday's quake was less than 32 km below the surface — far less than normal — and that the epicentre was located in a mountainous region 180 km southwest of Bogota on the borders of Tolima and Quindio provinces.

The institute reported scores of aftershocks, the largest of which measured between 5.5 and 5.6 on the Richter scale, but it was not immediately clear if these had caused any additional damage.