The Colombian government announced Thursday that it will donate $100,000 to emergency programs in southern Chile, following the devastating earthquake that struck the country last week.
Diego Molano, the director of the Colombian Presidency's aid agency Accion Social, said that "President Alvaro Uribe has asked us, as a show of solidarity with Chile, to give economic support of the sum of $100,000," according to Terra.
In addition to the financial support, Colombia will also offer technical support to help reconstruct the affected areas, using methods successfully implemented after the 1999 earthquake which struck Colombia's coffee region, Molano explained.
Meanwhile, Colombia's Ministry of Interior and Justice announced that a "Hercules" Colombian Air Force plane left for Santiago on Thursday, carrying humanitarian aid. The plane will also be used to repatriate Colombians trapped in Chile by the quake.
