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The Mexican rescue brigade Los Topos arrived this Wednesday in the Colombian city of Cali to assist in the rescue of people trapped under the rubble from the 7.4-magnitude earthquake that struck the country on Monday, leaving more than two hundred people dead.
The Mexican rescuers, led by their leader, Héctor Méndez, arrived in Colombia from Venezuela, where they had been for 41 days following the two powerful La Guaira earthquakes that caused more than 6,300 deaths on June 24, and were received by the mayor of Cali, Alejandro Eder.
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"We were in Venezuela for 41 days and we decided to come here instead of going to Mexico as soon as we saw what was happening. We left our activities in Venezuela, which was already the recovery of fatal victims, to join this great effort to come and rescue our brothers," asserted the brigade member.
Cali, the capital of the Valle del Cauca department, is one of the cities most affected by the earthquake, with nearly a hundred dead and dozens of residential and commercial buildings that collapsed or suffered severe damage.
"This is an out-of-the-ordinary situation and I ask everyone working on this to make an effort to overcome this period in which we feel like victims. We are not victims, we are members of the press, we are firefighters, we are the military, we are police, and we are volunteers," Méndez added to journalists, standing beside the mayor.
The Topos Tlatelolco rescue brigade was created in September 1985 when a group of volunteer citizens began search and rescue efforts for people among the rubble left by the 8.1-magnitude Mexico City earthquake.
"We know we will make the maximum effort and that we will succeed in having these families successfully and happily have their loved ones rescued," the brigade member added.
The earthquake has caused the death of at least 181 people, according to Colombian President Abelardo de la Espriella, although regional authorities raise that number to approximately 240 deaths and there is an indeterminate number of people missing or trapped under the rubble in both Cali and Pereira, the capital of the Risaralda department.
[Publicidad]