Hunger and despair gripped Colombia’s coffee-growing capital Wednesday, plunging this earthquake-shattered city into chaos as mobs looted under the watchful eyes of sympathetic, rifle-toting national police officers.
By the hundreds, frenzied people broke down the doors of the downtown Merca-Dos grocery store and grabbed whatever scraps they could: corn, rice, toilet paper. The inside of the store reeked of rot, with beans and rice littering the floor as people rummaged to get whatever was left.
They looted for hours, looking warily at the cracked walls and ceiling each time there was an aftershock, until someone yelled, “There’s nothing left.”
Down the street, people shattered the windows of a building and went in, tossing out mattresses from the second floor to the crowd outside.
“I haven’t eaten since Monday,” said Brodie Herrera, 15, as he held onto a bag of rice and corn he had stolen from the store. “My parents told me to come down and get whatever I could.”
Two days after an earthquake left scores of towns and villages a shambles throughout western Colombia, Armenia was a picture of mayhem, with riot police finally moving in to establish some order among residents desperate for anything to eat.
On a scorching-hot day, surrounded by the elusive beauty of green mountains, traffic was clogged for miles in all directions as tens of thousands of people, many of them homeless, walked the streets of Armenia.
People wore face masks to block the stench.
A black Cadillac hearse got stuck in traffic with half a dozen wooden coffins on top. Scores of people sought refuge outside in makeshift tents. Buildings throughout the city were reduced to rubble, and shattered glass covered the streets. The cry of sirens was everywhere.
The tension was palpable even among rescue workers, who yelled at motorists who cut in front of them in traffic.
“People are stealing food, whatever they can,” said Alvaro Andres Serna, a traffic officer sent from Medellin. “Whatever they can, they take. They are hungry. Imagine, in 15 seconds that the earthquake lasted, they lost everything. They are in ruins.”
For most of the day, national police stood by as residents broke into stores. Asked why they did not intervene, one officer said, “Human rights.”
Officer Ruiz Rodriguez said the officers were under orders not to use force. “We can’t use arms. We can’t hurt them. We feel impotent,” he said. “We can only control people to a certain point.”
The chaos in the city underscored the failure of efforts to ease Armenia’s suffering. As overwhelmed relief agencies tried to help, supplies backed up at the airports in Bogota, the nation’s capital, as well as on streets in Armenia.
Exhausted rescuers using their hands to dig through the rubble complained that there was little equipment available to help find people trapped in the thousands of buildings that collapsed in the quake two days earlier. Even such basic equipment as searchlights were in short supply.
Communications were virtually nonexistent; a makeshift system using walkie-talkies largely failed after everyone began using the same frequency.
Officials said there was little coordination among the Red Cross, Civil Defense and firefighters and that the central government in Bogota hadn’t sent in an official to coordinate relief efforts in the city.
In areas where bulldozers were moving the remains of buildings, it was unclear whether thorough checks had been made to see whether survivors were trapped in the rubble. Officials said hopes already were fading of finding more survivors beneath the tons of broken concrete and tangled metal.
The 6.0 magnitude earthquake hit Monday afternoon, spreading devastation in 20 towns and villages across five provinces. Most of Armenia, the city hit hardest, was without power and low on water and gasoline.
The official death toll stood at 878 Wednesday, but relief workers predicted the final toll in Armenia alone could top 2,000.
“The situation is very grave. My impression is that efforts are very uncoordinated,” said Cecilia Ramirez, head of social development for Quindio province. “Only 5 to 10 percent of the food needs of survivors are being met. People are hungry.”
Noemi Peralta, a woman in her 60s, spent two nights camped out under a plastic sheet in torrential rain with her daughter and five grandchildren.
“We didn’t die in the earthquake, but they’re going to let us die of hunger,” Peralta said.
While officials tried to sort out the bureaucratic obstacles, in some of the worst-hit neighborhoods–home to the city’s poor– virtually no relief efforts had begun. In one area, a group of volunteers from a neighboring province could not set up power generators because local government and rescue officials couldn’t agree where to put them.
In one shattered neighborhood, a hand-painted sign pleaded, “We need help. Don’t forget us.”
Reynel Lopez, 40, was outside his latrine business, which was now all rubble, weeping. Lopez, his wife and three children were left with about $7.
“I never thought I would cry for this city,” he said, his voice breaking. “I never thought I would see the place I was born in, had my children, where I had based my aspirations, destroyed this way.”
As he spoke, rescue workers using one of the few bulldozers available searched for victims across the street, at what was once the five-story Residencias Lepa hotel. Suddenly, someone yelled out, “Bring a blanket!”
Another body had been recovered.
Workers placed the body, wrapped in a blue blanket, into the claw of the bulldozer and transported it to the street. Before long, wailing could be heard.
The victim was 40-year-old Rosa Elena Valenica, owner of a furniture store next to the hotel. Her sister, Daniela, began crying uncontrollably as she identified the body.
“Please don’t!” she shouted, as rescue workers doused a white powder on the body to keep it from rotting.
Rescue workers had recovered 38 bodies from the hotel as of late Wednesday afternoon.
Throughout the city, people walked around with a look of gloom, and there was no immediate end in sight to the suffering. As night fell, a thunderstorm, punctuated by lightning, drenched Armenia.
“Things will get worse,” said Serna, the traffic cop. “People will be more hungry tomorrow.”
