Scores Killed in Colombia Quake

A 7.4 magnitude earthquake struck western Colombia on Monday morning, collapsing dozens of buildings and killing well over 100 people, with the death toll expected to rise. The quake hit around 7:30 a.m. local time near the country's third-largest city, Cali, and was felt across hundreds of miles. This is the latest in a string of major earthquakes across South America and Japan over the past two months, and the difference in death tolls between them illustrates a grim pattern: infrastructure matters as much as the quake itself.

The Colombia Earthquake and the Infrastructure Gap

ABC's Trevor Ault, reporting from Los Angeles, described the scene as "very obviously devastating from the beginning." Rescue crews are digging through rubble with their hands and buckets, working carefully to avoid triggering secondary collapses. The challenge is immense: buildings that were not built to withstand seismic activity have turned into death traps, and every minute counts for survivors buried under thousands of pounds of debris. The episode drew a direct contrast with a 6.8 magnitude quake in Japan a few weeks ago, which killed fewer than 40 people. Japan and the U.S. have squadrons of engineers and encyclopedias of regulations designing buildings specifically for "the big one." Colombia, like much of the region, lacks that level of seismic preparedness. Host Brad Mielke noted that wh