Pereira: What Did Not Collapse
This photo essay does not seek to turn pain into spectacle. I was not there when the earth moved. Yet for weeks, I have pieced together that morning through the eyes of my family, through their memories, fears, and stories. What follows is not the testimony of someone who witnessed the earthquake firsthand, but the perspective of someone who has tried to understand it by listening to those who lived through it and by observing the scars it left on a city still learning how to coexist with its memory.
These photographs are, in part, an exercise in observation and, above all, an exercise in listening.
There are moments when a city learns, in an instant, that nothing that seems permanent truly is.
At 7:34 on the morning of August 10, 2026 the earth shook with a force that swept through Pereira and left behind a different city. The magnitude 7.4 earthquake struck much of western Colombia. It left homes, buildings, businesses, and infrastructure destroyed; it also left behind the dead, the injured, displaced families, and thousands of people facing an impossible question: how do you begin again after losing so much?
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What you lost, you will recover 7,4 times more...I swear.
Images of tragedy do not only reveal what was broken. Behind every collapsed wall there was a story. A home was never just bricks and a roof, but years of work, sacrifice, memories, and dreams; the place where children grew up and where the future was imagined. A business was not merely a source of income, but a life built step by step.
In a matter of seconds, it was not only structures that fell, but entire life projects.
Nothing material can be compared to a life lost. There is no equivalent for the absence of someone who will never return home. Yet acknowledging that life is the most precious thing does not make other losses insignificant. A home is mourned. A business is mourned. The life built around them is mourned as well.
That morning, after the roar and the cracking of the earth, came the silence of chaos. A silence made of dust, screams, sirens, confusion, failed phone calls, and people trying to comprehend what had happened.
And then came the hands.
Before any reconstruction plans, neighbors came first. People who, despite living through the same uncertainty and anguish, cleared rubble, shared water and food, lent tools, opened their doors, or stayed beside those who did not know what to do. Solidarity arrived without uniforms or institutional speeches. It often came wrapped in a phrase as simple as it was powerful: I am here.
Amid shattered concrete and debris, small flowers began to appear. Not real flowers, but something perhaps even more fragile and more powerful: evidence that, even in the midst of destruction, human beings were still capable of caring for one another.
The first reconstruction was not architectural. It was human.
Yet when the earth stops shaking, fear does not always end.
There are people, including members of my family, who still startle at certain sounds, inspect walls before sitting down, or unexpectedly relive that morning. These are invisible wounds, impossible to measure in censuses or tons of rubble: sleepless nights, constant uncertainty, the fear of losing everything again, and the unsettling realization that the ground, the place that seemed solid throughout an entire lifetime, can cease to feel stable at any moment.
The earthquake lasted minutes. For some, the trembling continues within.
In heaven, somebody is waiting for your victory.
And still, Pereira endures. Colombia endures!
It endures in the shopkeeper cleaning what could be salvaged, in the worker picking up their tools once more, in families continuing to cook wherever they can. It endures in those who lost almost everything and yet rise every morning because children must be fed, businesses must be reopened, debts must be paid, or simply because life must go on.
There is a particular kind of dignity in that gesture. It is not heroism. It is survival. It is love for ordinary life. It is the quiet dignity of a wounded city that refuses to surrender itself.
Pereira is not being rebuilt by institutions alone. It is rising again from the ground up, through people who understand that a city is not a collection of buildings but a network of human relationships.
Where official narratives speak of reconstruction, these photographs reveal something more fundamental: regular people rebuilding their own lives, often with little or no institutional support.
Above all, these photographs are an act of remembrance. A tribute to those who never made it out. To those who lost loved ones and beloved companion animals. To those who, with empty hands, chose to stand up and continue.
Pereira will never be the same again. Perhaps no city that has lived through tragedy ever is. But amid the ruins, something remained that could not be brought down: The determination to remain a community. And that is where true reconstruction begins.
Memory by memory.
Embrace by embrace.
Life by life.
Photograph by photograph.
My Family, After the Earthquake
The story of reconstruction is also the story of my family.
In the weeks since the earthquake, they have been navigating insurance claims, government assistance programs, engineering assessments, and an endless stream of paperwork, all while trying to rebuild some sense of normality. Today, they are safe and living in temporary accommodation, a stability that felt uncertain in the days immediately after the disaster.
The outcomes, however, have not been the same for everyone.
My mother's building suffered severe damage, but fortunately it was protected by a comprehensive insurance policy. The reconstruction of both the building and her apartment will be covered, and the policy also provides temporary rental assistance while repairs are completed.
My sister Jenny's situation is different. Her building cannot be repaired and will be completely demolished. The insurance covers only the shared areas of the property, not the reconstruction of individual apartments. Much of what remained inside, including furniture and personal belongings collected over years of family life, could not be recovered and will likely disappear with the demolition.
This is where the generosity of friends, family, colleagues, and even strangers has become part of our story. The contributions made through the GoFundMe campaign will help Jenny and my nieces begin again. They will help rebuild a home, replace essential belongings, and create a foundation from which a family can move forward after losing so much.
What our family has learned is that loss cannot be measured solely in structural damage or material possessions. It is also measured in memories left behind, in everyday objects filled with meaning, and in the sense of security that a home provides. Rebuilding is not simply about raising walls again; it is about gradually restoring the feeling of belonging, stability, and refuge that turned a physical space into a home.
To everyone who supported us: THANK YOU! Your kindness is now part of my family's reconstruction story. Long after the headlines fade, your generosity will remain visible in the lives you have helped rebuild.
Pereira, Colombia - October 8, 2026