Video shows baby being pulled from Colombia earthquake rubble When the deadly 7.4 magnitude earthquake hit Colombia on Monday, Brian Osorio Zuluaga ran out of his office in Cali and raced home on his motorcycle. The sight of a collapsed five-story residential building forced him to stop. “It was a big complex, it covered an entire block,” Osorio told CNN. The earthquake was the strongest to hit Colombia in more than a decade and sent residents and neighbors of the building, Las Torres del Limonar, fleeing into the streets. “Some in sleepwear or pajamas; some crying, others in shock,” Osorio said. He approached the rubble and began shouting into the rubble for survivors, despite warnings about a possible gas leak. He suddenly asked those around him for silence. A faint sound emerged from the rubble, barely a whisper. “Yes, I’m here. I’m with a baby,” a man’s voice responded. Osorio described how he and several others began moving debris with their hands to reach the couple. But a large concrete slab blocked their path. “On the first attempt we couldn’t lift it,” he said. Then, “Let’s all lift up together: one, two, three, up.” The slab was too heavy to throw aside, and Osorio worried there might be more people trapped underneath. Some volunteers held him up while others cleared a path to the baby. “You can see the baby’s head there, which, at that moment, looked a little purplish because he couldn’t breathe,” Osorio said. “Once we started removing the debris, the baby started to…breathe and his color started to return.” Video of the remarkable rescue filmed by Osorio shows the little baby in a dusty suit being carefully pulled from the rubble. A man, his arm bloodied, can be seen lying awkwardly on his side, still half trapped under a concrete board. Osorio said they handed him the baby, a boy, and handed him to a police officer, who took him to an ambulance. They then focused on freeing the trapped man. Among the debris, Osorio said he saw clothes, shoes and a stuffed animal covered in dust. He thought about the people who might still be trapped. “All those thoughts go through your mind,” he said. The bravery of everyone who rushed to help was what saved the lives of both the man and the baby. “Unity is strength, because no one alone could have lifted that piece of rubble; it was so big and so heavy,” he said. “It is better to act than to stay still,” Osorio added. “Everything helps.” Rescue efforts enter third day Search and rescue operations entered their third day early Wednesday, as emergency services raced to find more survivors after the powerful earthquake that struck western Colombia, killing more than 200 people, according to a CNN tally based on reports from officials. The earthquake struck the heart of the country’s coffee-growing region and catapulted communities into a state of national disaster as world leaders offered aid and assistance. The European Union has mobilized its Copernicus satellite service and is providing funds to help the response, the bloc’s foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas said. In Cali, a woman was pulled from under a mountain of rubble on Tuesday to cheers as firefighters carried her on a stretcher after a complex multinational rescue operation. And in Pereira, a CNN team on the ground watched rescue workers and volunteers form a human chain to clear debris and help save those trapped from an apartment building. Sports clothes, shorts and tennis shoes… they are not prepared for this,” CNN national correspondent David Culver said from the site. “We have seen scenes like this scattered throughout Pereira. This is one of the most affected areas.” People wait for rescue of survivors at the Las Torres del Limonar building after an earthquake in Cali, Colombia, on August 11. But in the epicenter of Monday’s earthquake, Chocó, an indigenous leader told CNN that aid has not yet reached the area, the poorest region in Colombia. Víctor Chamapuro, leader of the Wounaan “Buenavista” Indigenous Reserve in Litoral del San Juan del Chocó, said “all our houses are on the ground.” “Where are we going to sleep now? We have to be alert now, we are sleeping outside,” he said. Chamapuro called on authorities to send food and medicine, saying that one person from the community was injured. The “Buenavista” reserve can only be reached by boat in a five-hour trip from the port of Buenaventura, on Colombia’s Pacific coast. Video sent by Chamapuro from the reserve shows flattened buildings that appear to be built with wood and corrugated iron sheets. Others are still standing, but with varying levels of damage. The earthquake is one of the first big challenges for Colombia’s new far-right president, Abelardo de la Espriella, who took office last week and has promised to harshly attack left-wing criminal and militant groups in Colombia. De la Espriella on Tuesday announced economic aid measures for those affected by the earthquake and financial support for people who have lost their homes to rent temporary housing.
