One month after a magnitude 7.4 earthquake rattled the Chocó region on Colombia’s Pacific coast, the scars are still visible in Quibdó, the departmental capital. In the Las Terrazas neighborhood, entire houses are cracked beyond repair, their facades crumbling and their foundations no longer safe to stand on. City officials are now preparing to tear down the whole area.
But before the bulldozers arrive, residents have turned the ruined walls into something else: a canvas for hope. Handwritten notes, some signed by the people who wrote them, dot the broken plaster and exposed brick. Phrases about faith, strength, and starting over appear next to gaping fissures, turning symbols of loss into declarations of resilience. One recurring message translates to “We come together in resilience,” capturing the mood of a community facing the demolition of the place they called home.
The situation echoes fears in another part of the city. In the nearby Jardín neighborhood, residents have described sleeping outside their own houses, too afraid that a quake-damaged building nearby could collapse on top of them.
As Quibdó grapples with the aftermath of the disaster, the messages scrawled across Las Terrazas offer a glimpse of how its residents are coping—holding onto hope even as their neighborhood is erased. To see the full photo essay and read more about the community’s response, check out the original report from El Tiempo.
Source: Los mensajes de esperanza que adornan las casas de un barrio de Quibdó que tendrá que ser demolido por completo (eltiempo.com). English version produced with AI assistance.
Image: Newtown grafitti, BY 2.0 (via Openverse).