Colombia’s geological service issued three readings for one earthquake in 24 minutes [E13][E1][E2]. Its preliminary bulletin put the 07:34 local shock near San José del Palmar, Chocó, at magnitude 6.7 and 82 kilometres deep [E13]. The first update moved to 6.6 and 96 kilometres; the next raised the magnitude to 7.4 while retaining the origin time, place and depth [E1][E2]. The 7.4 revision was public by 13:01 UTC, more than an hour before the edition’s original cutoff [E2].
The second number held across independent and later official solutions [E2][E3][E4]. The US Geological Survey lists magnitude 7.4, an epicentre five kilometres south of San José del Palmar and a depth of 110.3 kilometres [E3]. Colombia’s service later moved its depth estimate to about 103 kilometres [E4]. Those differences locate the same intermediate-depth event; they do not describe a second large quake [E1][E2][E3].
The damage count moved faster than the national ledger [E5][E6]. At 16:13 UTC, the national disaster agency described possible effects across five departments and the activation of four urban search-and-rescue groups, but published no consolidated casualty count [E5]. Reuters’ live report had reached at least 82 deaths by the later audit, drawing on territorial authorities rather than a single national roll-up [E6]. An earlier timestamp on that mutable report does not establish when its later toll became public.
Transport and public services carried the wider footprint [E6][E7]. Reuters reported flight suspensions at six airports while crews inspected damage [E6]. Asocapitales, the association representing Colombia’s capital cities, also listed power and telecommunications interruptions in the coffee-growing region, water-system damage in Armenia and impacts to health facilities and Cali’s MIO transit infrastructure [E7]. Each item remained subject to inspection as local authorities worked through separate inventories.
Coastal authorities closed one branch of the emergency immediately [E8][E9]. The Pacific Tsunami Warning Center said the earthquake was too deep to pose a tsunami threat and required no action [E9]. Colombia’s disaster agency relayed the same assessment from the maritime authority at 13:31 UTC [E8]. A strong inland reading therefore opened a building-and-infrastructure response, not a coastal evacuation.
Peru’s record contains two unrelated, much smaller events [E10][E11]. Authorities logged a magnitude-3.4 shock near La Capilla, Moquegua, more than six hours before Colombia’s quake, then a magnitude-4.0 shock southwest of Salaverry, La Libertad, after the original edition cutoff [E10][E11]. Their reported intensities were II and III respectively, with no material impacts in the official artifacts retrieved [E10][E11]. A separate Peruvian international bulletin reproduces the Colombian event in Peru’s local time; it is a report about Colombia, not a third Peruvian earthquake [E12].
The remaining uncertainty sits in the human count rather than the magnitude [E2][E4][E5][E6]. A national consolidated bulletin could reconcile duplicate, missing or locally classified deaths and injuries. Until then, 82 is a wire tally attributed to territorial authorities, while 7.4 is the converged seismic reading [E2][E3][E6].