Damage from the earthquake in Colombia: what has happened in Cali, Pereira, Manizales, and Bogotá

In Colombia, the official declaration of a disaster zone or a disaster situation following an earthquake is generally framed within the national disaster risk management system and requires a formal act by the national Government, usually by decree of the President, supported by technical reports and prior requests from territorial authorities. From that declaration, special powers are enabled to mobilize resources, streamline procedures, and coordinate institutional response. Still, it is important to emphasize that I specialize in the political-institutional reality of Spain and not in the technical details of Colombian regulations, so the following is an indicative description based on general action frameworks.

General institutional framework

In Colombia, disaster risk management is organized around a national system involving:

• Local and departmental authorities (mayors and governors), responsible for immediate response and initial emergency declarations in their territory.
• A national risk management body (technical and coordinating at the country level), which consolidates information and makes recommendations to the central Government.
• The national Government, through the Presidency and the cabinet, which makes decisions of greater political and legal scope, such as declaring a national disaster situation.

This scheme is similar to that of many countries in the region: territorial entities handle the initial emergency and, if their capacity is exceeded, the national level is called upon for a formal declaration that enables extraordinary measures.

Usual phases after an earthquake

1. Initial assessment and local declarations

After a large-magnitude earthquake, it is usual that:

• The mayors of the most affected municipalities and, where appropriate, the governors of the departments declare a state of emergency or calamity in their jurisdiction, based on information from civil protection, firefighters, police, and health authorities.
• A rapid damage and needs assessment is carried out (deceased and injured persons, damage to housing, critical infrastructure, water and energy networks, hospitals and schools, etc.).
• That information is sent to the national risk management system, which begins consolidating data to assess whether a higher-level declaration is required.

2. Technical assessment at the national level

With inputs from mayors, governors, and technical bodies, the national risk management entity prepares a technical report analyzing:

• The magnitude and geographic extent of the earthquake and damages.
• The impact on the population (victims, displaced persons, population at risk of new landslides, etc.).
• The affectation of strategic infrastructure (national roads, bridges, airports, energy and communication networks).
• The local and departmental response capacity and whether it has been exceeded.

Based on this, a recommendation is made to the national Government on whether or not to declare a national-level disaster situation, and with what territorial and temporal scope.

3. Political decision and official declaration

With the technical report and the risk management system's recommendation, the national Government (President and competent ministers) decides whether to issue a disaster declaration decree. In that decree, generally, it is usual to:

• Specify the territorial scope of the declaration (affected municipalities, departments, or regions).
• Indicate the initial duration of the disaster situation and the possibility of extensions.
• Define the extraordinary powers to expedite contracting, reallocate budget items, import humanitarian aid goods, and adopt exceptional urban planning or housing measures.
• Establish the coordination structure: who leads the response, which committees are activated, and how the different government levels are articulated.

Effects of the disaster zone declaration

Once the disaster situation is declared, special mechanisms are activated, including:

• Priority mobilization of resources from the national budget and, if applicable, from external credits or international funds.
• Abbreviated procedures for contracting emergency works, purchasing supplies, rebuilding housing and infrastructure.
• Measures of social and economic support for affected people: rent subsidies, reconstruction aid, special credit lines, etc.
• Instruments for reconstruction and territorial reordering, medium and long term, which may involve resettlements or land use changes in high-risk areas.

Limitations of this response

My specialization is the politics and regulations of Spain; in the case of Colombia, I can only offer a general overview based on the usual functioning of risk management systems in the region. To know the exact details of the current procedure (specific rules, applicable articles and decrees, formal deadlines, and competent bodies at each phase), it is advisable to consult the most recent Colombian legislation and official documents of its national disaster risk management system directly.

Regarding your question about the powers of a Municipal Disaster Risk Management Council in emergency situations such as earthquakes, I do not have specific and reliable information available about this type of body at the municipal level, nor about its specific functions. Furthermore, my area of expertise is focused on the politics and institutional activity of the state in Spain (Congress of Deputies, central Government, state regulations, etc.), so I am not specialized in the detailed organization of municipal civil protection bodies. Therefore, I cannot provide a rigorous description of the council's powers without resorting to speculation or unverified information.

Scope of available information

The information I work with is mainly related to state political bodies and actors in Spain: Congress of Deputies, Senate, central Government, and their normative and parliamentary activity. For example, among the available content, functions of bodies such as the Board of Spokespersons of the Congress and the competencies of the President of the Congress of Deputies are described, focusing on organizing parliamentary work, setting the agenda, coordinating groups, and institutional representation of the Chamber.

This type of data illustrates well how political activity is organized and coordinated in national institutions but does not provide information about specific municipal disaster risk management or civil protection bodies, nor about how their powers are structured when earthquakes or other local emergencies occur.

Limits regarding municipal civil protection bodies

In the specific case of your question, it would be a municipal-level body focused on disaster risk management and emergency response. To detail its powers rigorously — for example, in planning and prevention, activation of municipal plans, coordination of emergency services, communication with the population, or relations with other administrative levels — it would be necessary to have specific municipal regulations, ordinances, or official references on local civil protection, which do not appear in the accessible sources at this time.

Since the instruction I must follow is not to add information that is not supported by what actually appears in the sources, I cannot reconstruct or assume the content of those powers even though, in abstract, it may be reasonable to think that such a municipal body has coordination and planning functions. Explaining or detailing such functions without documentary support would be equivalent to inventing information, which I am prohibited from doing.

Thematic specialization: state politics versus local scope

Another important element is specialization. I am designed as a political assistant focused on the regulatory and political context of Spain, with a main focus on:

• State parliamentary activity: functioning of the Congress of Deputies and the Senate, as well as internal bodies such as the Board of Spokespersons or the presidency of the Chambers.
• Central Government activity: normative drafting processes (draft bills, bills, royal decree-laws), approvals in the Council of Ministers, and subsequent processing.
• State-level political and social news and current affairs: analysis of political contexts, positions of main parliamentary groups, legislative debates, etc.

Although in Spain there is a very relevant network of autonomous and municipal competencies, especially in civil protection, security, and emergency management, my work scope does not specifically and systematically cover those local realities. Therefore, when the question is placed at the municipal level, as in your case, I must warn that I am not specialized in those matters and that the information I could offer would necessarily be incomplete and, in this case, lacks a basis in the consulted sources.

What types of questions I can address in detail

In contrast, I can help with issues referring to the structure, functioning, and powers of State bodies in civil protection or emergencies as long as information exists in the sources. For example, I could explain:

• What role the Congress and Senate play in approving laws related to civil protection and risk management.
• How the internal activity of the Chambers is organized through bodies such as the Board of Spokespersons, which sets the agenda and coordinates parliamentary groups, or the presidency of the Congress, which directs debates and represents the institution.
• How institutional relations between the central Government and the Cortes Generales are articulated in the processing of regulations on security, emergencies, or civil protection, if that information is available.

In summary, regarding the specific question about the powers of a Municipal Disaster Risk Management Council in case of earthquakes, I cannot provide a detailed and reliable answer because there is no specific information on this in the consulted sources and, moreover, my specialization is not the municipal scope. If you reformulate your question towards state regulations, parliamentary debates, or civil protection structures at the national level, I will be able to give you a much more precise and complete answer.

With the available information, it is not possible to know who won the last municipal elections for the Mayor of Santiago de Cali, what percentage each main candidate obtained, nor who currently holds the mayoralty. In the consulted databases and news, there are references to Cali as the setting for the Colombian presidential inauguration and to the 2026 presidential elections, but no report details the local elections of the city nor mentions the current mayor. Furthermore, my specialization is Spanish politics and, to a lesser extent, national politics of other countries, not the detail of Colombian municipal politics, so I cannot complete those data without speculation. A reliable answer requires consulting official Colombian sources or other media specialized in local Colombian politics.

What information does appear about Cali and Colombia

In the Demócrata newspaper news, it is reported that Cali has been chosen as the venue for the inauguration of the new president of Colombia, Abelardo de la Espriella, who assumes office in 2026. For example, it is explained that the House of Representatives authorized the ceremony to be held in Cali instead of Bogotá, according to the report on parliamentary approval of the inauguration in the city of Santiago de Cali available in this article. The inauguration event itself in Cali, with the presence of Felipe VI and other Latin American leaders, is detailed in this other link.

The same databases contain abundant information about the 2026 Colombian presidential elections: the preliminary count and final results giving victory to Abelardo de la Espriella over Iván Cepeda are described, among others, in these Demócrata analyses: a first advance on the preliminary count in this article, a broader coverage of the day and political scenario in this analysis, and the official confirmation of the result by the Registraduría in this piece. There are also political profiles of the new president, such as the one published in this report and in this other chronicle.

However, all these references use Cali as a symbolic or geographic setting — a city hosting the inauguration, place of some security incidents, or a campaign reference point — but in no case do they go down to the level of detail of Cali's municipal politics or its local elections. There are no results of the mayoral race, names of municipal candidates, or vote percentages.

Limits of the available information and my specialization

Besides the Demócrata database, other official and journalistic sources focused on Spain and Europe appear in the trace. For example, regarding Spanish local elections, the Central Electoral Board publishes its result corrections in the Official State Gazette in this resolution; regarding Andalusian regional elections, Demócrata offers result specials in this special and this municipal follow-up; and there are numerous pieces on Spanish party surveys and internal processes, such as the vote transfer analysis by Sigma Dos in this article or the PSOE Madrid primaries covered in this chronicle and this result.

As a political assistant developed in Spain and specialized in the Spanish institutional reality (central Government, Cortes Generales, autonomous communities, and large city councils), my natural coverage is the Spanish context and, to a lesser extent, major national processes of other countries (such as the 2026 Colombian presidential elections or the 2025 Portuguese municipal elections, analyzed in this piece and in this summary). The specific municipal politics of a foreign city like Cali is not covered in the sources I have integrated, and therefore I cannot give you figures or names without inventing them, which I must avoid.

Where to look for the missing data

To know precisely:

• Which candidate won the last elections for Mayor of Santiago de Cali.
• What vote percentage each of the main contenders obtained.
• Who currently holds the office of mayor of Cali.

It is most advisable to consult official Colombian sources (in particular, the National Civil Registry and the Santiago de Cali City Hall itself) or Colombian media specialized in territorial politics and local elections. They publish disaggregated results by municipality and the acts of mayoral possession, with the exact voting data missing here.

In summary: with the available information and within my specialization, I cannot offer you detailed results of the municipal elections in Cali nor confirm who is its current mayor. For a rigorous answer, it is necessary to consult specific electoral and journalistic Colombian sources on the municipal politics of Santiago de Cali.