Rescuers in Pereira, Colombia, saved a 32-year-old woman on Tuesday after she spent 36 hours trapped beneath a collapsed building [1, 2, 4].
The rescue serves as a critical survival milestone following a devastating seismic event that caused widespread structural failure across the region.
The woman was pulled alive from the debris on Aug. 12 [4]. She had been trapped since Monday, when a magnitude-7.4 earthquake struck the region [3, 5]. The quake triggered the collapse of the structure where the woman was located, leaving her pinned under rubble for a day and a half [1].
Emergency teams operated in Pereira, a city located in the Risaralda department [5]. While some early reports associated the area with the Chocó region, administrative records place Pereira within Risaralda [5]. The rescue operation involved clearing heavy debris to reach the survivor, who had remained trapped for 36 hours [1].
The magnitude-7.4 quake caused significant damage to infrastructure throughout the area [3]. Search and rescue teams have continued to scour the rubble of various collapsed buildings in the wake of the disaster to locate other potential survivors [3].
Local authorities and international aid organizations have focused their efforts on the coffee-growing regions affected by the tremor. The survival of the 32-year-old woman provides a rare success story amid the ongoing recovery efforts in Pereira [2, 5].
“A 32-year-old woman was rescued after 36 hours trapped beneath a collapsed building.”
This rescue highlights the critical window for survival in urban search-and-rescue operations, where the first 72 hours are vital for finding survivors. The magnitude of the quake and the resulting structural collapses in Pereira underscore the vulnerability of regional infrastructure to high-magnitude seismic events in Colombia.
