Inside a Doral warehouse this week, volunteers are stacking donated diapers, tents, and first-aid kits by the boxful. Some of the hands packing those boxes belong to people who cannot follow the aid to where it's going.
A Quake That Reached the Diaspora
The magnitude-7.4 earthquake that struck western Colombia on Aug. 10 was centered near San José del Palmar, a remote town in the Chocó region, and is being called the country's strongest in decades. As of Aug. 13, Colombia's government had confirmed at least 265 deaths and nearly 500 people still missing — though officials in Bogotá caution both numbers are likely to keep climbing. Citizen-run tracking sites have logged the missing-persons count far higher, above 4,100, a gap that may partly reflect how hard it is to reach Chocó's more remote communities, some of which are accessible only by boat or small aircraft. More than 3,500 people have been injured, according to the most recent counts, and Colombia's geological service has logged nearly 100 aftershocks since Monday. Colombia's government declared a national disaster within hours of the quake and a separate state of economic emergency days later, while the United States pledged $15.5 million toward the recovery.
Camila Gómez, deputy regional director for the International Rescue Committee, put the scale of it plainly: "This is the largest earthquake that Colombia has experienced in two decades," she told Al Jazeera.
Doral Mobilizes
The nonprofit Global Empowerment Mission has once again become the hub of South Florida's response, just as it did roughly a month earlier when twin earthquakes devastated neighboring Venezuela. From its warehouse at 1850 NW 84th Avenue in Doral, GEM is asking donors for cash rather than shipped goods where possible, so it can buy supplies directly inside Colombia and move faster than freight would allow. The organization has partnered with two Colombian nonprofits on the ground — Motorrad Angels Foundation, which reaches communities other aid groups can't, and Fundación Solidaridad por Colombia, a Bogotá-based nonprofit founded in 1975 — to run distributions in Pereira, Cali, and other hard-hit cities.
Local officials have joined the push. "Right now we are encouraging financial donations" instead of physical goods, Doral Councilmember Maureen Porras told CBS News Miami, since so much of what's needed can be purchased locally in Colombia. Cristhian Mancera, a Miami-Dade councilman and Colombian community leader, said his phone hasn't stopped ringing since the quake hit — mostly with people desperate for word on relatives back home.
The mobilization has spread well beyond Doral. In Broward County, the group Semillas Colombia is collecting donations through partner churches. In Palm Beach County, a cluster of Colombian-owned restaurants — including several Rinconcito Colombiano locations and El Molino Restaurant — launched a joint drive called "Ayudemos a Colombia," funneling everything collected back to GEM's Doral hub. "It's just heartbreaking," said Juanita Paramo, a Palm Beach County resident with family in the hardest-hit areas, in comments to CBS12. Florida is home to more than 400,000 Colombian immigrants, according to Latin Times' own prior reporting, with Miami-Dade County alone accounting for well over 100,000 based on independent Census Bureau estimates.
For Some, There's No Flight Home
Not everyone touched by the disaster can board a relief flight, or any flight, to check on family.
Víctor Andrés Quintero, who left Cali for Miami seven years ago, learned something was wrong when relatives in Spain shared a WhatsApp video from a family group chat: people running from a clinic in Cali as it began to collapse. He recognized his aunt Myriam among them. Phone lines into Cali were down for hours. When he finally reached a cousin who had gone to the site in person, she confirmed what he'd feared — Myriam, who had raised Quintero since he was 9 after his mother's death, had died in the collapse.
Quintero is undocumented. Immigration attorneys note that leaving the U.S. without legal status generally triggers reentry bars under federal law that can keep a person locked out for years — meaning a trip home to bury his aunt could permanently end the life he's built in Florida. "My head is spinning. I don't even know what to do," he told El País.
Colombia has never received a Temporary Protected Status designation from the U.S. government — unlike Venezuela, Haiti, and several other nations whose nationals have at times been allowed to travel and return legally under that program. For Colombians without legal status, that means there's effectively no government-sanctioned path to go home right now and come back.
That reality is shaping what South Florida's response looks like on the ground. For organizers like Mancera, mobilizing donations isn't just charity — for some, it's the only way left to reach their own families at all.
Casualty figures, missing-persons counts, and relief logistics referenced above were current as of Aug. 13–14, 2026, and are expected to change as search-and-rescue operations continue.
