By Gonzalo Zegarra, Sol Amaya, Sana Noor Haq en Español

(CNN) — A deadly 7.4 magnitude earthquake was recorded Monday in western Colombia, according to the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS), with tremors felt in several cities across the country.

The epicenter was located in San José del Palmar, in the department of Chocó, about 240 kilometers west of Bogotá, at a depth of 107 kilometers at 7:34 a.m. (local time, 8:34 a.m. Miami time), the USGS reported.

At least 20 people have been killed in Colombia, according to local authorities. In the mountainous city of Pereira, 18 people died, the city’s Mayor Mauricio Salazar told local media. Further north, two people were killed in the central city of Manizales, the Mayor Jorge Eduardo Rojas posted on X, warning that “many structures were affected,” including buildings that were “totally” destroyed.

Colombia’s President Abelardo De la Espriella convened an emergency committee to coordinate an emergency response on Monday. Other regional leaders pledged to bolster rescue efforts, with Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum offering her government’s support.

The powerful quake in Colombia came weeks after twin earthquakes ravaged neighboring Venezuela in late June, killing at least 3,685 people, displacing nearly 18,000 residents and leaving scores of survivors separated from loved ones. At the time, some of those shocks were felt in Colombia – where the most populated cities likely impacted by the quake on Monday include Zarzal, Pereira and Armenia, according to the USGS.

In Colombia’s third-largest city, Cali, at least 20 buildings collapsed with people trapped under the rubble, according to the Mayor Alejandro Eder. He called on people to check infrastructure for “structural damage,” urging them to evacuate should they see “large cracks.”

Elsewhere, the governor of Colombia’s northwestern area of Chocó, Nubia Carolina Córdoba Curi, confirmed that in the regional capital, Quibdó, “there are injured people and severe damage to buildings” and expressed concern about possible aftershocks.

The quake damaged Colombian airports in six cities – Pereira, Manizales, Quibdó, Armenia, Cartago, and Buenaventura – according to the country’s Civil Aviation Authority, suspending flight operations.

In the nation’s capital, the tremor was felt strongly, alarms sounded, and in many buildings people evacuated to the streets as a precaution. “At this time there are no reports of injuries or structural damage, only some cracks in buildings,” Bogotá Mayor Carlos Galán said on X.

In total, more than 2 million people were exposed to very strong shaking during the earthquake, which could bring “considerable damage in poorly built structures,” according to the scale used by the USGS. The agency estimated a significant number of deaths, with a roughly one-in-three chance that fatalities could top 1,000.

This is a developing story and will be updated.

CNN’s Brandon Miller contributed reporting.

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