One month after a magnitude 7.4 earthquake shook the Colombian city of Cali, a chilling security camera video has surfaced showing the exact moment the Torres del Limonar residential building collapsed. The footage, recorded from a nearby building, captures residents fleeing the structure as the tremors intensified, moments before the entire tower crumbled to the ground in roughly five seconds.
The video shows a metal gate shaking violently just before the building comes down, sending a massive cloud of dust and debris across several blocks. Panicked voices can be heard begging for anyone trapped inside to make a sound. The dust cloud was so thick it eventually blurred the very camera recording the scene.
Torres del Limonar, built in the 1970s and 80s in southern Cali, was once considered an architectural point of pride for the surrounding Capri and Nuevo Rey neighborhoods. The building’s collapse killed 29 people, while seven survivors were pulled from the rubble, including Diana Troncoso, whose rescue became one of the most widely shared images of the tragedy.
On the one-month anniversary, city officials and residents gathered at Cali’s Ecoparque de la Biodiversidad to honor the 154 people who died in the earthquake overall, unveiling a plaque engraved with their names. Mayor Alejandro Eder said the victims’ memory would guide the city’s ongoing recovery.
Read the original report at El Tiempo for more details and additional footage.
Source: Así se desplomó el edificio Torres del Limonar, en Cali, el día del terremoto: video del momento exacto (eltiempo.com). English version produced with AI assistance.
Image: dbking, BY 2.0 (via Openverse).