The government of President Abelardo de la Espriella has been criticized over its refusal to accept foreign search and rescue workers in the crucial hours after Monday’s earthquake.
One of the first to raise the alarm was China’s ambassador to Bogota, Zhu Jingyang, who called on the government on Tuesday to “release the name of the official and his or her designated contact person to coordinate international aid for the earthquake victims.”
El Salvador’s President Nayib Bukele said that he was told that Colombia’s “rescue teams, medical personnel, and other emergency responders are on the scene and handling the situation” and “they do not require personnel support.”
Mexico’s President Caudia Sheinbaum said that her government was waiting for approval to send a team of 225 rescue workers to look for survivors, but was waiting for a “formal invitation” from Bogota.
In a response to growing pressure, newspaper El Tiempo said Colombia didn’t need foreign search and rescue teams because “the country has 23 teams with personnel that is part of the global elite.”
The Foreign Ministry said on Tuesday evening that it had “called on the international community to provide support in addressing the emergency, in order to tackle the most severely affected areas and mitigate the disaster.”
But social leader Leonard Renteria from Buenaventura said Wednesday that “as of yesterday, we still didn’t know anything about the arrival of rescue workers” in the partially destroyed port city.
“On the streets, we’ve seen people from the neighborhoods with the firefighters and civil defense personnel,” Renteria posted on social media platform X.
Fifty hours after Monday’s disaster, the US Department of State said it had “mobilized urban search-and-rescue (USAR) technical teams from Fairfax County, Virginia, and Los Angeles County, California to support Colombia’s search and rescue efforts.”
With chances of finding people alive rapidly decreasing, pressure on the government to respond increased online.
“I would really like to know the technical reason for rejecting assistance from teams that specialize in this type of disaster. There are many affected areas and plenty of evidence of technical inadequacies,” said civil engineer Gina Villalobos on X.
According to opposition congresswoman Maria Fernanda Carrascal, “it was an ideological decision, they only wanted rescue workers from Israel and the United States to enter while the Mexicans have been ready since Monday.”
On Wednesday afternoon, newly appointed disaster response chief David Tamayo said the government would also allow search and rescue workers from Ecuador and El Salvador “that can guarantee the provision of search and rescue teams and that are recognized by their own governments as meeting international search and rescue standards.”
These teams would come to search for hundreds of people who are feared to be under the rubble of buildings that collapsed in the worst earthquake in 10 years.
