Tremor terror

A Jamaican man who found himself caught in the grip of a 7.4-magnitude earthquake in Colombia says chaos erupted in the stairwell of the 17-storey hotel where he was staying, as panicked guests rushed to the exits amid “terrifying” tremors.

Dave Creary said he arrived in Medellín on Saturday for a one-week vacation and was sleeping in his room when an earthquake alert on his cell phone went off early Monday morning.

He said that seconds later, at approximately 7:30 a.m., his hotel room on the 12th floor began shaking violently, causing him to run for the exit.

However, in a bid to move quickly, he said he managed to grab only his phone, leaving his passport behind.

Outside his room, he said the chaos was heightened as scrambling guests shoved at each other in the stairwell in a desperate bid to get to safety.

“When I got up, the place was just shaking hard. I looked out of my window and saw buildings shaking and people running, so I grabbed my phone to run to the lobby area,” said Creary, who was visiting the South American country for the first time.

“Outside on the corridor, persons were just coming out of their rooms; running, screaming, and everybody trying to get to the stairs one time. So it was chaos to get down the stairs from the 12th floor. While we’re running down, it kept shaking. It went on for over a minute,” he added.

Colombian authorities said more than 265 people had been reported killed up to yesterday, and dozens of buildings collapsed in cities across the western side of the country on Monday, trapping residents under debris.

Dozens of residents were reported injured, with more than 3,000 reported missing following the quake, which had its epicentre in San José del Palmar, a community of about 4,800 people.

The impact extended as far as Bogotá, the country’s capital.

SITS IN ONE OF THE MOST ACTIVE REGIONS

The country sits in one of the most active and complex tectonic regions in the world, positioned at the meeting point of three major crustal plates and criss-crossed by multiple active fault systems.

“Outside in the parking lot and neighbouring parking lots, everybody was running. Persons had their phones trying to make calls. There was a siren that kept going off. It was just really chaotic,” he told The Gleaner.

He said it was in that moment that he decided to make a short video, which he posted to his social media page, alerting his family to the situation on the ground.

He said it was his way of letting them know that he had evacuated his hotel but had left his travel document behind and might, at some point, be stranded and unable to communicate with them.

“I didn’t know that I was going to make it. I thought this was going to be the end. From the moment I woke up until I reached down it was just straight prayers. My fear was that the building would collapse on us.

“Being on vacation, this is the last thing that you expect to happen. I wasn’t prepared for this. I ran and left everything behind. I made the video just in case,” he said.

Scores of Jamaicans have turned to the Spanish-speaking country in recent years for vacations as a cheaper and more accessible alternative to the US, Europe, and other countries in the region.

Direct flights from the country to Montego Bay since December 2025 have also made the destination an easy pick for Jamaicans.

Creary said flights out of Medellín were immediately suspended following the quake, but he was expecting to leave the country today.

Although fewer than 100 miles from the epicentre, Creary said his hotel and surrounding buildings withstood the disaster that ravaged several towns.

“There isn’t much damage, but we’re seeing emergency vehicles, like at least 50 to 80 – ambulances, police vehicles – just rushing past, heading to the communities at the epicentre. I’ve never seen anything like it.

“The energy and the vibe in the country is low. Persons are postponing or cancelling their itineraries because of what happened. Nobody is in the mood to do anything. There are a lot of Jamaicans at my hotel and a lot were on the flight with me, but the vibe is low. It has been very traumatic,” he said.

kimone.francis@gleanerjm.com