00:00The earthquake on August 10 lasted just under two minutes.
00:03Rebuilding what it destroyed could take years and cost the country between 19 and 38 trillion pesos.
00:10How do you do a reconstruction of that magnitude?
00:12What has been announced, and what do those who have already experienced this say?
00:15The extent of the damage.
00:17The most recent figures speak of more than 300 dead and more than 12,000 affected families
00:22in about 450 municipalities in 15 departments, especially in Risaralda, Valle and Chocó.
00:28The blow to infrastructure is enormous.
00:30Approximately 27,000 homes destroyed and more than 127,000 damaged.
00:34Damage to nearly 300 health centers, more than 2,800 schools, as well as roads and bridges.
00:40A government-commissioned study by a private firm estimates that direct physical losses
00:45In the five most affected departments, the losses are approaching 30 trillion pesos.
00:49Of those, 24.5 trillion correspond to buildings and 5.5 trillion to infrastructure.
00:55And that figure only accounts for what was lost, not what it will cost to rebuild, which could be higher.
01:00The plan.
01:01The government launched the so-called Miracle Reconstruction Plan, coordinated from the Ministry
01:05Housing.
01:06It has two phases.
01:07The first one requires an immediate response.
01:09Rental subsidies for those who became homeless, support for public services and
01:13debris removal with machinery from the private sector.
01:16The second is the actual reconstruction.
01:19It will be financed with resources from the government, compensation funds, and territorial entities.
01:23and counterparts from the business and financial sector.
01:26The new homes would be delivered between 2027 and 2028.
01:30To organize all that money, President Abelardo de las Priella announced the creation
01:34from the Miracle Fund, inspired by FOREC, the fund that led the reconstruction of
01:38Coffee region after the 1999 earthquake.
01:40The resources are already being moved.
01:42The business sector, represented by ANDI, has raised more than 200 billion pesos.
01:48The United States pledged $15.5 million.
01:51China offered one million dollars and 15 million yuan worth of supplies.
01:55And the Ministry of Finance activated a disbursement of $200 million from a loan from
02:00World Bank.
02:01The banking sector also joined in.
02:02Grace periods of up to 12 months, credit history protection, and suspension of collections
02:07legal aid to the affected debtors.
02:09Lessons from the past.
02:10Colombia has already rebuilt itself twice after an earthquake.
02:14Popayán in 1983 and the coffee region in 1999.
02:18Both left lessons.
02:19In Popayán, there was aid that did not reach where it was intended.
02:23A large portion of the resources ended up supporting northern Cauca more than the city itself.
02:27beaten.
02:27In the coffee-growing region, FOREC managed resources transparently, according to the Comptroller's Office.
02:32But years later, the Prosecutor's Office imprisoned three of its directors for irregularities.
02:36in the management of public funds.
02:38Those who lived through those processes insist on two things today.
02:41First, a single registry of victims without leaks.
02:45Second, that civil society and those affected themselves have a voice in the decisions, not
02:49only officials appointed from Bogotá.
02:51One specific risk that is already emerging is speculation.
02:54In calamities like this, rents and construction materials tend to skyrocket.
02:59Experts recommend freezing prices at the levels they were at the day before the earthquake, such as
03:03reference and delegate on-the-ground monitoring to the mayors, before the increases become entrenched.
03:09The fiscal cost
03:10The main problem is that this shock comes to the government at a moment of fragility.
03:14The fiscal deficit could reach around 8% of GDP.
03:18Experts estimate that approximately 65% of the reconstruction costs would fall on
03:24the public budget.
03:25But there is also a less gloomy side.
03:27Reconstruction could become an economic engine.
03:30Demand for construction materials and jobs could boost GDP from the second quarter onwards.
03:34half of 2026, according to some analysts.
03:37What's at stake isn't just money, it's the lives of thousands of people and the possibility
03:41to reintegrate into a life that was shattered in less than two minutes.
03:55Thank you.
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