The Colombian geological service put the magnitude of the quake at 6.6 while its American counterpart USGS put it at 7.4.
At least 111 people were killed and hundreds of buildings damaged after a powerful 7.4-magnitude earthquake struck Colombia, the country's President Abelardo de la Espriella said on Monday.
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De la Espriella said that at least 87 people had been injured and that he had declared a state of emergency.
“You are not alone. The state is present and taking action,” he said.
The quake trapped residents under debris, leaving more injured and forcing people to evacuate their homes as far as the capital of Bogotá.
The epicentre was in San Jose Del Palmar, a community of about 4,800 people in the Choco region about 250 miles west of Bogotá, the US Geological Survey and Colombia’s counterpart reported.
The USGS said it struck at a depth of 107 kilometers and was also was felt in neighbouring Ecuador and Panama, though minimal damage was reported there.
The quake left cities across the west of the country ravaged.
A mix of residents and search teams picked through the rubble of collapsed buildings amid concerns by authorities of aftershocks.
Colombia's interior minister said more than 20 municipalities across the country had been hit.
Jorge Moncayo, a 64-year-old taxi driver in Cali, said he saw plumes of dust shoot up across the city from his home in hills of the city as buildings collapsed. Residents in the city and rescue workers were searching the rubble for survivors.
“My entire house shook,” he said. “I've never lived through such a powerful earthquake.”
Colombia's Geological Service said on Monday that it had been “the highest magnitude earthquake registered in Colombia in the last decade” and that it had been followed by two 2.8 and 4.8 magnitude aftershocks.
Authorities also reported that flights were suspended in the airports of Manizales, Quibdo, Armenia, Cartago y Buenaventura and Pereira.
The earthquakes left many in the Andean nation unnerved after two back-to-back quakes devastated neighbouring Venezuela in late June, destroyed hundreds of buildings and killed more than 5,000 people.
At the same time the quake brought down buildings in Colombia, desperate families in Venezuela continued to search the ruins for the bodies of their loved ones.
In Pereira, photos and videos published by local media showed pieces of the airport ceiling falling down on travellers taking shelter and screaming, and people running through rubble in a panic.
Pereira's mayor, Mauricio Salazar, told a local radio station that at least 18 people had died and that many more were trapped under “a massive quantity of collapsed buildings.”
In nearby Manizales, a city nestled in the coffee-producing mountains of Colombia, one of the towers of the neo-Gothic cathedral collapsed and fell on the nave. Jorge Eduardo Rojas, the mayor of Manizales said two people had died in the city “because of the quake” and asked residents to stay outside in case of aftershocks.
Authorities in the rural state of Choco, the epicentre of the quake, reported injured people and damaged buildings in the capital, but provided few details.
In Cali, a city 2 million people, Mayor Alejandro Eder said that residents were trapped in at least 19 buildings that had collapsed.
Small earthquakes, known as “temblores,” are common in central and western Colombia, but those above 6.0 magnitude are rare.
In 1999, a 6.2 magnitude quake near the city of Armenia, killed more than 1,100 people.