Reconstruction: the challenge after the 90 seconds of the worst earthquake of the century in the country

From the jungles of Chocó to the Western mountain range and along the entire Pacific coast to Buenaventura, in a perimeter 150 kilometers wide and 250 kilometers long, the toll of 294 dead and the ruins of more than 12,500 houses, dozens of churches, 66 collapsed buildings, and thousands of heavily damaged constructions bear witness to the devastation left by the worst earthquake Colombia has faced in the last 27 years.

At 7:34 a.m. on Monday, August 10, with the epicenter in the forgotten Chocó town of San José del Palmar, the 7.4 magnitude earthquake lasted for 90 seconds that felt eternal to millions of Colombians in nearly 600 municipalities, including Bogotá, where the ground shook like it hadn’t been felt in decades.

Minutes later, despite the temporary collapse of communications, the media and social networks began to tell Colombia the magnitude of its worst natural disaster so far this century. Besides the partial toll of 294 dead, at least 320 missing, 3,935 injured, and more than 115,000 directly affected are reported.

Cali, Pereira, Manizales, Armenia, and Quibdó concentrate most of the affected, but destruction reigns in dozens of towns that, like El Águila in Valle, were left without a hospital and without a church. The tragedy made no distinctions: babies barely one year old and elderly people aged 84 are counted among the long list of fatalities, including entire families, such as the Saavedra Caicedo family in Cali, where one daughter fights for her life while her parents and sisters died in the rubble.

The drama of the Saavedra Caicedo family repeats in other families, even in schools. Anthony Ríos Gómez, María José Lozada Torres, Emanuel Bastidas Arredondo, and Jesús Muñoz Quiceno, all between 6 and 8 years old, died in their school in Calima-Darién, Valle. In Yumbo, the tragedy repeated at the Panorama branch of the Gabriel García Márquez Educational Institute, where the girls Luciana Moreno Flórez and Niela Nicol Vernaza died.

And in Chocó, the department historically abandoned by the State and where many who are still waiting for aid believe the destruction was not greater precisely because the backwardness is reflected in the fact that there are very few buildings there, Mateo Valencia, the six-year-old son of the mayor of Bahía Solano who died in one of the modest buildings that collapsed in Quibdó, is one of the emblematic faces of the tragedy.

While the entire country continues to mobilize to help those in need, hundreds of rescuers, members of the Public Force, and anonymous volunteers continue working to find alive those still buried under the rubble. Thanks to these efforts, 353 people have been rescued. But every passing minute makes it less likely to find them with vital signs.

The hospital network across the country, weakened by the crisis of recent years, faces one of its greatest challenges with the care of thousands of injured, several seriously, in buildings semi-destroyed by the earthquake and with doctors and nurses also personally affected by the tragedy. More than 54,000 families are affected by the loss of loved ones, their homes, and businesses.

The magnitude of this catastrophe immediately recalls the earthquake in January 1999 that left nearly 1,400 dead and devastated Armenia and other municipalities in the Coffee Axis. The lessons learned almost 30 years ago – the most notable being the restoration of the Quindío capital with seismic resistance standards that prevented deaths, although the damage was enormous – mark the roadmap for reconstruction, which the government of President Abelardo De La Espriella began working on from the first minute and which, according to experts, could take at least six years and require investments between 20 and 40 trillion pesos.

This new responsibility is assumed by an administration that has barely completed a week at the helm of the country’s destiny, at a time when public finances face one of their worst crises after Gustavo Petro’s four-year term, during which the capacities of the National Unit for Disaster Risk Management (UNGRD) – the State body responsible for handling these events – were severely affected by administrative chaos and corruption.

The total or partial damage to 2,612 educational centers, 3,621 community spaces, 241 health centers, 59 aqueducts, 5 airports, and 298 roads further worsens the outlook. The magnitude of the destruction will require close coordination between the National Government, the private sector, and civil society, as well as public, private, and international cooperation resources to rebuild 448 municipalities in 15 departments, with Valle del Cauca, Chocó, Risaralda, Caldas, and Quindío being the hardest hit.

Facing such a challenge will require an unprecedented financial deployment in recent public finance history. Former Finance Minister Juan Camilo Restrepo, who led that portfolio precisely when the 1999 earthquake occurred, warns that the current reconstruction could represent between one and two points of the gross domestic product (GDP). “We are facing one of the deepest crises we have had, and that requires coordinated and large-scale action.”

The estimate coincides with that of Luis Fernando Mejía, CEO of Lumen Economic Intelligence. Both emphasize the magnitude of the challenge at a time when the fiscal deficit inherited from the previous government is close to 8 percent. However, they anticipate that in the medium term, the reconstruction of public infrastructure and housing will generate a direct boost to GDP through the dynamization of construction, both of buildings and civil works.

Although President De La Espriella’s government came with the banner of not raising taxes, at least in the short term, Mejía considers it likely that this decision will have to be reconsidered as the magnitude of the damage and reconstruction needs become clearer.

The country’s capacity to withstand future earthquakes will ultimately depend on the quality and resistance of the buildings erected in the devastated areas. On this point, Daniel Mauricio Ruiz, professor in the Department of Engineering at the Pontifical Javeriana University, points out that reconstruction must focus on two axes: differentiated seismic reinforcement of the structures that remain standing and strict compliance with seismic resistance regulations in new constructions.

Ruiz explains that each typology requires a particular technical strategy, since “it is not the same to reinforce a bahareque building as a reinforced concrete one.” Along these lines, the academic warns that it should be evaluated whether it is necessary to raise the demand parameters in the affected regions.

Added to this is the importance of avoiding empirical construction without technical supervision. “It is not a good strategy for the affected families themselves to build without support; any home should have the design, review, and technical supervision of a civil engineer and an architect, passing through the validation of an urban planning office,” he asserts.

Given the geographical dispersion of damage in 448 municipalities, industry leaders agree that the response cannot be a fragmented or improvised process. In this regard, María Claudia Lacouture, president of AmCham Colombia, says the absolute priority must be attending to people through shelter, health services, and housing solutions, to then advance in the reconstruction of schools, health centers, roads, public services, and economic reactivation.

“In the end, reconstruction will not be measured only by how much is announced, but by the speed, transparency, and efficiency with which resources reach families and territories,” she points out.

Along the same lines, Guillermo Herrera, president of the Colombian Chamber of Construction (Camacol), highlights the urgency of establishing a single management mechanism dedicated exclusively to reconstruction, with coordination capacity, territorial presence, and clear transparency rules.

He also emphasizes that this articulated management between the National Government, local authorities, the private sector, and cooperation should not wait until the medium term, as the works will become an engine for job recovery and confidence in the regions.

Beyond administrative and financial management, the National Government announced this Friday the ‘Miracle Reconstruction Plan,’ a roadmap that will mark the immediate response to the emergency and the strategy to lift the country after the earthquake. Actions and resource coordination will be centralized within the framework of the ‘Miracle Fund.’

The priority will be attending to affected families and determining the real magnitude of the damage. In this regard, the UNGRD will advance together with territorial entities in delivering temporary rental subsidies, as well as support for public services and other necessary supplies to address the situation.

At the same time, the Ministry of Housing and the private sector agreed to form an ‘Expert Battalion’ made up of specialized professionals who will carry out a structural diagnosis and screening of buildings to determine which can be repaired, which require structural intervention, and which must be demolished and replaced.

Once this characterization progresses, the reconstruction phase will begin under the concept of ‘Miracle Housing.’ Among the first measures, the immediate availability of completed Social Interest Housing (VIS) in the affected or nearby areas will be identified together with the construction sector. To facilitate the financial closure of households, the concurrence of subsidies from the National Government, family compensation funds, and territorial entities will be sought.

Regarding housing improvements, properties with repairable damage will be prioritized to restore optimal habitability conditions. For this purpose, the business sector will lead the structuring of a ‘Materials Bank’ that will supply materials for works in the territories.

Looking to the medium term, the Government will work on housing solutions that can be completed and delivered during 2027 and 2028, as well as new improvements for affected homes.

Finally, understanding that reconstruction goes beyond housing, tools such as Works for Taxes and the General Royalty System will be evaluated to finance key complementary infrastructure: schools, health posts, roads, bridges, and community equipment.

To provide a solid and lasting regulatory framework for all these initiatives, former minister Juan Camilo Restrepo suggests the need to include an exclusive chapter on the reconstruction strategy within the National Development Plan of President Abelardo De La Espriella’s government.

Given the immense challenges posed by reconstruction, it is essential to revisit models that proved effective after the 1999 Coffee Axis earthquake and the 2010 winter emergency. Both former managers of the entities created to address those crises agree that the key to success lies in strong institutions, dedicated management, and decentralized execution schemes.

The 1999 catastrophe represented an estimated cost of 1.589 billion dollars. Despite the magnitude of the impact, the management of the Coffee Axis Reconstruction Fund (Forec) allowed rebuilding basic infrastructure and delivering thousands of housing solutions in four years.

Luis Carlos Villegas, former Forec manager, highlighted that the fund’s success was due to several determining factors: innovation in contracting, auditing, and oversight schemes, and the implementation of a temporary model that operated through 32 zonal management offices. This decentralized scheme allowed agile connection of resources with needs on the ground, fulfilling the commitment to liquidate the entity upon completion of the works.

In this regard, Villegas considered the creation of the recently announced ‘Miracle Fund’ a wise move, which must be formally structured within the framework of the economic emergency decreed by President De La Espriella. However, he warned that, unlike 1999, when the impact was concentrated in 28 municipalities, the current emergency covers more than 400 municipalities, demanding unprecedented logistics and territorial management capacity.

According to his estimates, immediate attention will take six months to a year; the stabilization phase will require an additional year; and total reconstruction will take up to three more years. In total, this process could take between four and six years, depending on the speed of designs and planning.

On the financial side, Villegas estimated that the ‘Miracle Fund’ should be prepared to manage between 5,000 and 7,000 dollars per affected person. Most of the capital should come from the state budget, since private donations historically do not exceed 3 or 4 percent of the total investment in reconstruction processes. Regarding the management of these funds, he stressed the urgency of having agile contracting mechanisms accompanied by rigorous auditing schemes to avoid diversion or corruption, especially in a pre-local election context.

For his part, Germán Arce, former manager of the Adaptation Fund – from which he led the reconstruction of Gramalote and boosted housing construction for those affected by the 2010 winter wave – stated that the priority must be to leverage the risk management institutionality developed by the country over the years.

Both Arce and Villegas agree that reconstruction requires a visible manager with exclusive dedication and the direct trust of the head of state, supported by technical teams trained in crisis management and experienced in legal, legislative, financial, and design fields.

Moreover, the magnitude of the event will require the strategy to occupy a priority place during the four years of President De La Espriella’s administration. “The Government’s agenda changed with the earthquake and now it will have to rethink its priorities facing this enormous challenge,” Arce said.

In housing matters, Arce specified that after the humanitarian aid phase, the priority will shift to temporary rental subsidies for the affected. But the Government’s real challenge will be to build a permanent housing solution, knowing that economic support cannot be indefinite.

Facing the economic demands after the earthquake, the National Government’s first announcement regarding reconstruction was the declaration of an economic emergency based on budget transfers and without new taxes.

The initial disbursement of 200 million dollars from a contingent credit with the World Bank, which could be increased to 450 million dollars, has already been confirmed. Likewise, there is a quota at the IDB of up to 300 million dollars in credit and 500,000 dollars in non-reimbursable humanitarian assistance, while CAF donated another 500,000 dollars from its Social Development Funds.

Regarding the strategy, María Claudia Lacouture, from AmCham Colombia, states that “reconstruction requires a comprehensive combination of public sources, multilateral credit, international cooperation, insurance, donations, and private capital.” Daniel Velandia, from Credicorp Capital, and Andrés Pardo, from XP Investments, highlight external financing options, warning that the projected fiscal deficit of 7.4 percent for 2026 will force restructuring the General Budget before August 30.

For his part, Luis Fernando Mejía estimated that 65 percent of the cost will fall on the public budget, 30 percent on external cooperation, and 5 percent on private donations. Finance Minister Miguel Gómez confirmed that no new taxes will be created: “We will not raise taxes because we believe this budget allows for savings and cuts,” announcing the temporary suspension of income tax in affected areas.

In international cooperation, the United States will contribute 15.5 million dollars, the United Arab Emirates up to 10 million dollars, Norway and Sweden 1.5 million dollars, Spain one million euros, and the European Union 2 million euros.

In the private sector, Colombian companies raised nearly 202 billion pesos in 48 hours at the Colombian Business Congress of Andi through the campaign United Companies for Colombia. Bruce Mac Master, president of the guild, indicated that the funds will be managed through a trust. The amount includes 100 billion pesos contributed by the Santo Domingo family through the Santo Domingo Foundation, Valorem, and their companies, along with resources from Grupo Argos (13 billion pesos) and Ecopetrol (5 billion pesos).

Added to this collection is the personal donation of 500,000 dollars from businessman Arturo Calle and his family for physical reconstruction, as well as in-kind assistance: Tiendas D1 will allocate 1,000 tons of products, Grupo Éxito will assist 9,400 families, Postobón delivered 86,460 liters of beverages, Olímpica mobilized 55 tons of supplies.

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