Major earthquake strikes Colombia's Pacific region
Earthquake
How the score is calculated
The score starts at 8. It adds points from recorded affected, deaths, displaced and casualty counts, plus terms found in the story title, event type or status. For each count, only its highest matching band is used.
- Affected people
- 1–999: +5 · 1,000–9,999: +12 · 10,000–99,999: +20 · 100,000–999,999: +28 · 1 million+: +35
- Deaths
- 1–9: +8 · 10–99: +14 · 100–999: +22 · 1,000+: +30
- Displaced people
- 1–9,999: +6 · 10,000–99,999: +12 · 100,000+: +18
- Casualties
- 100 or more: +8
- Story wording
- +10 for terms such as catastrophe, famine, war, conflict, major earthquake, mass casualty or critical. Otherwise, +5 for active, ongoing, emergency, outbreak, cyclone or hurricane.
Score bands: Watch 0–24 · Moderate 25–49 · High 50–74 · Critical 75–100. Scores are capped at 100. Missing or unparseable figures add no points.
This is a rule-based WorldsAid triage indicator, not an official or independently validated classification. It does not account for recency or local context, and it can understate events with incomplete reporting. Check the linked sources.
In brief
- What happenedA magnitude 7.4 earthquake struck western Colombia at 7:34 a.m. local time on 10 August 2026, with the epicentre near San José del Palmar in Chocó.
- How many affectedAffected persons: 314,751 · Deaths: 329 · Injured: 4,600
- What help is neededLandslides and damaged roads isolated some of the worst-affected communities, while Colombian Red Cross and humanitarian teams continued shelter, health, water and protection support.
What changed
Updated verified snapshot
This record was first dated 2026-08-10 and last verified 2026-09-18.
Situation
A magnitude 7.4 earthquake struck western Colombia at 7:34 a.m. local time on 10 August 2026, with the epicentre near San José del Palmar in Chocó. OCHA Colombia's Flash Update 013, published on 17 September in Spanish and 18 September in English, retains the national-authority balance of 329 deaths, 4,600 injured people, 247 people missing and 314,751 people affected. The previous WorldsAid snapshot, sourced from IFRC, reported at least 176 deaths; it is preserved below as the earlier dated observation. Landslides and damaged roads isolated some of the worst-affected communities, while Colombian Red Cross and humanitarian teams continued shelter, health, water and protection support. IFRC's CHF 25 million Emergency Appeal targets approximately 24,000 people over 24 months. Human-impact figures remain provisional and may change as national authorities reconcile assessments.
WorldsAid verification
A WorldsAid editor reviewed this record against 6 attributed sources, cleaned feed formatting and checked the event, place and reporting date. 10 human-impact figures were separated from the narrative and dated where the source allowed. Earlier observations remain in the evidence history instead of being silently overwritten.
Verified figures
- Affected persons
- 314,751 retained at 2026-09-18
- Deaths
- 329 retained at 2026-09-18
- Injured
- 4,600 retained at 2026-09-18
- Reported injured
- 4,600 · national-authority balance retained in OCHA Flash Update 013 retained at 2026-09-18
- People missing
- 247 · national-authority balance retained in OCHA Flash Update 013 retained at 2026-09-18
- People affected
- 314,751 · national-authority balance retained in OCHA Flash Update 013 retained at 2026-09-18
- People targeted by IFRC appeal
- 24,000 retained at 2026-09-18
- IFRC emergency appeal
- CHF 25 million retained at 2026-09-18
- Earthquake magnitude
- 7.4 retained at 2026-09-18
- Response timeframe
- 24 months retained at 2026-09-18
What we knew when
- WorldsAid record entered the retained historical dataset.
- Earlier IFRC observation retained preserved as a dated, source-linked observation. Source
- OCHA Colombia Flash Update 013 · national-authority balance retained preserved as a dated, source-linked observation. Source
Earlier figures are never replaced by later values; additional observations are retained as new ledger entries.
Provenance
This page renders the last verified WorldsAid cache directly in HTML. It does not treat generated summaries as primary evidence.
Cached dataset: worldsai_drup771.sql.gz
Verified
SHA-256 fa687540d3b284456a4274b99f0b740af6fd78299c116aa78666f21c81af11c1- OCHA Colombia · Flash Update 013 · English · 18 September 2026
- OCHA Colombia · Flash Update 013 · Spanish · 17 September 2026
- IFRC: Colombia Earthquake 2026 emergency page
- IFRC: CHF 25 million emergency appeal
- EU mobilises civil protection assistance for earthquake-hit Colombia
- IFRC: Colombian Red Cross nationwide response