Perhaps in the history of Pereira the 1995 earthquake will be marked as one of the most destructive, although in collective memory the 1999 earthquake is always spoken of as the worst.
Oscar Osorio Ospina
It was 1:40 in the afternoon on Wednesday, February 8, 1995. The majority of employees were preparing to return to their offices and workplaces when a violent earthquake shook them out of their mid-day drowsiness.
An earthquake with a magnitude of 6.4 on the Richter Scale, with its epicenter in the La Zulia village of the municipality of Trujillo (Valle) and a depth of 77 kilometers, shook the city and several surrounding municipalities. That initial shock was followed by 103 aftershocks, 75 of them measuring more than 3 degrees, which further aggravated the situation.
The initial report spoke of 20 dead and 200 injured, countless buildings seriously affected, houses collapsed, government headquarters totally or partially destroyed, in short… A whole panorama of desolation.
On Carrera 12 bis with Calle 13, a building collapsed causing the death of several of its occupants and the same thing happened with another on Carrera 7 with Calle 13. Residential complexes such as Las Garzas had to be evacuated and government headquarters such as the Government of Risaralda had to be evacuated. , the DAS facilities in the Providencia neighborhood, the Incora offices, the Municipal Palace, among many others, suffered serious damage.
That afternoon, the Governor of that time, Diego Patiño Amariles, could hardly enter his office because the Departmental Palace suffered serious consequences, which forced the relocation of most of its offices. The directory of offices of the Government was provisionally atomized in facilities such as Mercasa, the Road District, the Infider, the Risaralda Lottery building and the Revenue building on 17th Street.
And a similar thing happened with the Mayor’s Office of Pereira, at that time headed by Juan Manuel Arango Vélez, who moved to a headquarters on Carrera 7 and Calle 38.
On the day of the earthquake, the Secretary of the Treasury, Juan Manuel Buitrago, was in charge of the Municipal Mayor’s Office, who, to facilitate the work of removing debris and rescuing the victims, as well as to avoid possible looting and vandalism, decreed a curfew between 8:00 at night and 5:00 in the morning.
President Ernesto Samper, accompanied by part of his cabinet, was present in the city a few days later to evaluate the magnitude of the damage and launch reconstruction actions, both in Pereira and Dosquebradas and several other municipalities. From that delegation he made for the Pereira engineer, Samuel Eduardo Salazar, who served as general director of INURBE, National Institute of Social Interest Housing and Urban Reform, which was liquidated in 2003.
An amazing case
From that tragedy, an almost miraculous episode remains alive in memory. This is the rescue alive of Mercedes Coronado, an engineer and Sena employee who, along with her family, was trapped in the middle of the rubble of the building they occupied in a section of Circunvalar Avenue and 9th Street, near Valeriano Marulanda Park.
After a long and desperate day of work carried out by several dozen firefighters and rescue personnel, Mercedes was saved, but neither her husband Héctor García, professor at the Technological University of Pereira, nor her domestic worker, Carmen Juliana Moreno, were able to save her. survive.
After being treated by medical personnel, Mercedes Coronado was able to reunite with her daughter, Carolina García, although the joy of the moment was overshadowed by the loss of those two loved ones.
The reconstruction
The earthquake 29 years ago served to launch intervention and reconstruction projects for many buildings that had been built without application of the earthquake-resistance standards, contemplated in Law 400 of 1997, which logically did not exist at that time.
Among them the Departmental Palace, built by architect Laureano Forero in the 70s when Mario Jiménez Correa was governor. At the initiative of the Colombian Society of Architects, the building received the National Architecture Prize in 1979.
Amparo Jaramillo de Drews, who directed the reconstruction of the Departmental Palace, which was carried out with a loan of $400 million backed by an insurance policy, recalled that it was necessary to remove hundreds of tons of bricks from the building that were part of the office divisions. and carry out the structural reinforcement of the palace, which is made up of two L-shaped buildings. In the six months that the works lasted, the Palace was left with few divisions now made of light material, with open environments and an office for the Governor decorated in different areas, such as the reception and meeting rooms, with pieces of pottery and goldsmithing typical of the Quimbaya culture acquired with a license from the Ministry of Culture.
The earthquake also revealed the need to urgently intervene in the Egoyá collector, the epicenter of this as well as the earthquake of November 23, 1979 (magnitude 7.2) that caused the collapse of 18 homes, 11 buildings, three churches, among them The Cathedral and Perpetual Help, the Police Headquarters on 25th Street and 5th Street, the building of the old EE.PP. located on 16th Street and 10th Street, and the San Jorge Hospital, among other serious damages, as recalled by engineer Carlos Alfredo Crosthwaite Ferro.
Colophon
Then came the earthquake of January 25, 1999 (magnitude 6.2), with a toll in Pereira of 40 dead, more than 50 injured and 52,000 people affected, while in Armenia it was a true catastrophe.
And, as always, every time the area trembles or a mourning date like this is commemorated, the question arises: are we prepared for the next earthquake?
Photo 1
The Diario del Otún circulated with an extra edition on the same day of the earthquake.
Photo 2
In the sector of Carrera 12 and Calle 17, little was left standing
Photo 3
The contrast of the ruins, with some buildings that were not damaged
Photo 4
The rescue of Mercedes Coronado was a true feat
Photo 5
President Ernesto Samper was received by Governor Diego Patiño to learn the magnitude of the disaster and coordinate the work of r
econstrucción