Colombian President Abelardo de la Espriella has put preliminary damage from the devastating earthquake that struck the country on August 10 at COP30 trillion (around $9.61bn), citing a private-sector estimate. The figure, revealed in a televised address on August 17, is roughly 60% above the $6bn initial estimate cited by Reuters in the days immediately after the quake, an increase that reflects the more granular picture emerging as damage assessments proceed rather than a change in the scale of the disaster itself.

The president stressed that the number remains provisional and subject to revision. The magnitude 7.4 earthquake has now affected 450 municipalities across 15 departments, killing 289 people, injuring 4,187, leaving 143 missing and displacing 120,328 families — an increase on the 120,238 families reported four days earlier, even as the number of people unaccounted for has narrowed sharply from the nearly 380 initially reported missing as the authorities' tally has firmed up.

Of the total, the private estimate attributed COP24.5 trillion ($7.85bn) in direct losses to buildings and a further COP5.5 trillion ($1.76bn) to infrastructure. De la Espriella said 26,945 homes had been destroyed, alongside damage to 285 health centres and 2,838 schools, and warned that reconstruction costs across the affected regions and cities could also reach COP30 trillion ($9.61bn), in effect doubling the bill once rebuilding is added to the direct losses already sustained.

The World Bank remains central to that effort. Colombia has activated the first tranche of a World Bank loan, worth $200mn, which is now available for urgent victim assistance; de la Espriella thanked the multilateral lender for its "agility" in responding to the government's request. The disbursement follows the Bank's own $200mn release on August 13 and the launch of its Global Rapid Assessment of Damages from Earthquakes, or GRADE, which is intended to give Bogotá an early, independent estimate of economic losses and to help determine where reconstruction financing should be directed, work that will shape how far the latest damage estimate figure holds up under scrutiny.

International aid has climbed $1.3bn to date, on top of a $400mn contingent facility from the Inter-American Development Bank that was approved before the earthquake as part of Colombia's broader financial resilience framework, and $26.5mn in US earthquake assistance. De la Espriella has separately asked Donald Trump, who backed him publicly during the election, to suspend tariffs on Colombian goods to help ease the economic strain.

To manage domestic reconstruction spending, the president announced the creation of the Fondo Milagro, modelled on the Forec fund used after the 1999 Eje Cafetero earthquake. He said his economic team intended to replicate that fund's successes while avoiding its past errors, a nod to the corruption and mismanagement that dogged the 1999 rebuilding effort. De la Espriella also hailed the role of first lady Ana Lucía Pineda in coordinating the "Colombia, un solo corazón" humanitarian campaign, which has channelled hundreds of tonnes of food, water, medicine and clothing to affected communities.

Alongside the fund, the president unveiled the Plan Milagro de Reconstrucción, calling on builders to donate profits from housing projects in the affected zones and urging banks to lower interest rates — currently at 12% under the central bank — to help families rebuild or acquire housing. The government will also roll out rent subsidies, utility relief and a "Vivienda Milagro" housing programme once a census of affected households is complete.

De la Espriella said he would decree a state of economic emergency to enable extraordinary measures, invoking constitutional provisions for responding to unforeseen natural disasters. He vowed zero tolerance for corruption in the management of reconstruction funds, warning that anyone found misusing public money would face severe punishment, and described the fiscal situation he inherited as dire: over the past two years, he said, one in every three pesos collected in revenue went towards debt service, a legacy he attributed to the outgoing government's fiscal mismanagement.

The reconstruction push risks derailing an already fragile honeymoon for a president who took office only days before the disaster struck, having won the June 21 election by a narrow margin on a manifesto promising tighter public spending. His right-wing administration is facing mounting scrutiny, at home and abroad, over restrictive protocols placed on foreign search-and-rescue teams seeking to enter the country in the quake's immediate aftermath, and with a separate backlash over the distribution of campaign-branded soccer balls in crisis-hit regions, which has drawn ethical criticism over political marketing during an active humanitarian operation. Together, these missteps lay bare the tightrope de la Espriella must walk as he seeks to reframe an early crisis as the launchpad for a credible, well-financed reconstruction programme.