Bogota - A powerful earthquake ripped through Colombia's central coffee-growing region for almost five minutes yesterday, killing at least 250 people and injuring up to 1,000, local media reported.
Television footage showed people crushed under the rubble of collapsed buildings and people struggling to pull survivors from the wreckage of concrete and twisted metal in Armenia, in Quindio province.
Authorities said the quake measured six on the Richter scale and knocked out phone communications and brought buildings crashing to the ground in five provinces.
A six-story building, a top hotel, a theatre and a police station were levelled in Armenia, while a church and scores of shops and homes collapsed in ruins in Pereira.
It was the worst earthquake to strike Colombia since the one that struck the city of Popayan, in southwest Cauca province, in 1983 killing more than 300 people.