Colombian business leaders meet president in Quibdó for earthquake reconstruction planning

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On 7 September 2026, President Abelardo de la Espriella visited Quibdó with a group of prominent Colombian business leaders to coordinate reconstruction efforts following a magnitude 7.4 earthquake that struck the Chocó department on 10 August. The disaster resulted in 331 deaths, 4,439 injuries, 240 missing persons, and significant infrastructure damage, including over 5,200 destroyed homes in the historically impoverished, predominantly Afro-Colombian region. The delegation, which included figures such as Jaime and Gabriel Gilinski, Alejandro Santo Domingo, and Luis Carlos Sarmiento, engaged with local officials to address the needs of more than 12,000 displaced families. The event highlights a broad national crisis, as the earthquake affected 497 municipalities across 16 departments and forced the relocation of the Petronio Álvarez festival from Cali to Bogotá.

Consequences

The immediate focus of the reconstruction effort is a pilot project in Quibdó tasked with rebuilding the first 20 homes. Recovery operations remain complicated by ongoing seismic activity, as more than 1,340 tremors have been recorded in the region since the initial earthquake.

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