Stella Cifuentes has not slept soundly since Monday when an earthquake shook her city in southwestern Colombia. Since that day she has needed medication to fall asleep, terrified that if she sleeps she will not be able to react when the ground begins to shake again. Each night she wakes up over and over, with images of the three or four eternal minutes of the morning of 10 August, when her house shook violently and she, 64 years old, embraced her 84-year-old mother.
Cifuentes lives in an apartment in Caicedonia, a town of 30,000 residents in the Coffee Triangle near Armenia, one of the regions most affected by the 7.4 magnitude earthquake. Although her building, constructed just a year ago, remained structurally sound, she has not spent a night there since the earthquake while awaiting inspection by experts. She has returned only a couple of times to collect belongings, but fear overwhelms her and she seeks to leave as soon as possible. Temporarily staying at relatives' homes, Cifuentes remains on high alert: she now sleeps with her bedroom door open, something she never did before, because she fears she will not be able to open it in case she needs to evacuate.
Pamela Londoño, global mental health adviser for Project HOPE, a humanitarian organisation responding to the emergency, explained that this hypervigilance behaviour is the body's natural response to an acute stress situation. People remain in a constant state of alert and experience flashbacks that make them feel they are reliving the earthquake, even though the situation has already passed, she noted. Six days after the earthquake, the death toll exceeded 280, according to official records.
Bachir Carrillo, 42 years old, lives in Cali, one of the most devastated cities with approximately one hundred dead. Although technicians inspected his second-floor apartment and determined it is habitable, Carrillo does not trust that verdict. He has been sleeping in the green space of his building, going down each night with neighbours and making excuses to not go upstairs until past two or three in the morning. When he finally goes up to sleep, he dresses completely, keeps his wallet and heart medication in his pockets, and leaves shoes and keys ready. He is already looking to move to a room in a single-family house. "You are left with that fear that it will happen again and that this time you will not survive," Carrillo said, who preferred not to see his son this weekend until he moves to a new place.
Mateo Yepes, 30 years old, was on the fifth floor of his apartment in Pereira when the earthquake struck. While talking to his mother, the building began to shake. He asked her to lie down on the floor while he did the same on the other side of the bed. Everything collapsed, the walls came loose. Through the bed, mother and son said goodbye. When the floor gave way, they were trapped under the rubble of the fifth floor turned into solid ground. A wall pinned Yepes against his chest, unable to speak or breathe, until workers from a nearby construction site rescued them. Yepes suffered a fractured femur and a broken hand; his mother came out unscathed.
Hospitalised in Manizales for multiple surgeries, Yepes remains without peace. He continues hearing in his mind the sound of the walls coming loose and repeatedly sees his mother saying goodbye to him through the bed. On the hospital stretcher, he constantly calculates what could fall on him if the ground were to shake again. He cannot fall asleep nor rest.
