Ministry: No Trinis reported affected by Colombia quake

No Trinidad and To­ba­go na­tion­als have been re­port­ed as af­fect­ed by a pow­er­ful 7.4-mag­ni­tude earth­quake that struck Colom­bia yes­ter­day, the Min­istry of For­eign and Cari­com Af­fairs has said.

How­ev­er, the min­istry said it was con­tin­u­ing to mon­i­tor the sit­u­a­tion through Trinidad and To­ba­go’s diplo­mat­ic mis­sions in the re­gion.

“We have not re­ceived any re­ports of na­tion­als of Trinidad and To­ba­go be­ing af­fect­ed by the earth­quakes,” the min­istry said in a re­lease.

The earth­quake struck west­ern Colom­bia, killing at least 111 peo­ple, in­jur­ing 87 and dam­ag­ing about 1,600 build­ings. At least 61 build­ings com­plete­ly col­lapsed, with res­cue teams search­ing through rub­ble for sur­vivors.

The epi­cen­tre was near San Jose del Pal­mar in the Choco re­gion, about 400 kilo­me­tres west of Bo­go­ta, ac­cord­ing to the US Ge­o­log­i­cal Sur­vey.

The earth­quake was al­so felt in neigh­bour­ing Ecuador and Pana­ma, al­though min­i­mal dam­age was re­port­ed there.

The Trinidad and To­ba­go Gov­ern­ment ex­pressed “firm sol­i­dar­i­ty” with the gov­ern­ments and peo­ple of Colom­bia and Ecuador fol­low­ing the earth­quakes.

“The Gov­ern­ment of Trinidad and To­ba­go re­mains mind­ful of the vul­ner­a­bil­i­ty of our re­gion to nat­ur­al dis­as­ters and shares the anx­i­ety of our neigh­bours dur­ing this chal­leng­ing pe­ri­od of as­sess­ment and re­cov­ery,” the min­istry said.

Na­tion­als who may have been af­fect­ed or re­quire con­sular as­sis­tance have been urged to con­tact the Trinidad and To­ba­go Em­bassy in Brasília.

The min­istry said, “Our thoughts re­main with those af­fect­ed by this event” and of­fered its sup­port for the safe­ty and re­silience of the peo­ple of Colom­bia and Ecuador.