Colombia quake victims huddle in shelters, 11 dead
Pastor Dale Morgan
Colombia quake victims huddle in shelters, 11 dead*
By Carlos Duran
Reuters
Sunday, May 25, 2008; 5:49 PM
QUETAME, Colombia (Reuters) - Hundreds of Colombians huddled in
makeshift shelters on Sunday afraid to go home a day after a
5.6-magnitude earthquake damaged scores of homes and triggered
landslides killing at least 11 people.
In the rural town of Quetame, the most seriously hit, families spent the
night sheltered on the town's football field or in a public building
after the quake knocked out water supplies and damaged or collapsed
houses and its church.
"People are still really terrified about a second or third one coming,"
Benedicto Enciso said as he sheltered with his companion and two
children after their home was damaged. "We're trying to put up a tent
for 20 people."
Colombia's Red Cross said at least 11 people died and 54 were injured,
with about 5,000 affected by damaged houses and buildings,
President Alvaro Uribe visited the affected area, where landslides
blocked a major highway from Bogota to Villavicencio near the epicenter,
which was 33 miles southeast of the capital, the U.S. Geological Survey
said.
Colombia's disaster-prevention office said on Sunday in Quetame alone
around 3,300 people were affected and either moved to safer housing or
shelters while authorities checked homes for damage. Other towns
suffered less damage.
Panicked residents in Bogota fled into the streets when the quake
rattled buildings, and one Bogota government office was evacuated after
a shower of bricks tumbled off one wall.
Colombia's coffee-growing region was hit in 1999 by a 6.2-magnitude
quake that killed at least 1,230 people and left more than 250,000
homeless in the country's worst natural disaster in the last decade.
(Reporting by Carlos Duran in Quetame, writing by Patrick Markey in
Bogota, editing by Philip Barbara)