Head of IDF delegation to quake-stricken Colombia: Chance of still finding survivors is slim

The head of Israel’s aid delegation to quake-stricken Colombia says the chance of finding survivors under the rubble a week after the disaster is slim.

Last Monday’s 7.4-magnitude earthquake in western Colombia killed nearly 300 people and injured nearly 4,000. At least 140 people are still missing, according to local authorities.

Brig. Gen. (Res.) Yossi Pinto, commander of the IDF National Search and Rescue Unit, tells reporters in a call this morning that there are hundreds of damaged buildings in the city of Cali, where the Israeli delegation is operating.

He says there are just five “sites of heavy destruction underneath which there are trapped people and people still missing.” The Israeli team is operating at three of these sites, according to Pinto.

“Tomorrow morning we will already enter the eighth day since the earthquake. We are aware that as time passes, the chances of finding people trapped alive decrease, and I estimate that over the next two days we will exhaust the stage of locating the missing people and rescuing them, and the authorities here will increasingly begin moving to the rehabilitation stage,” Pinto says.

Israel’s 80-strong aid delegation — named Brit Re’im, or covenant of friends — consists of IDF soldiers and officials from the Foreign and Defense Ministries. Pinto says it is the largest aid group currently operating in Colombia.

Alongside the search-and-rescue efforts, Pinto says the delegation is also assisting local authorities with engineering assessments of damaged buildings.

“Today we operated in areas with public buildings, schools, etc., to see that they are made operational and return life to its normal course. Here, tomorrow we will continue and inspect medical institutions, at the request of the Colombians,” he adds.