The U.S. Geological Survey said the 7.4 magnitude quake struck at a depth of 107 km (66 miles)

International News via Reuters:

At least 111 people were killed after a powerful earthquake struck western Colombia on Monday, toppling buildings across several cities, damaging hospitals and infrastructure and trapping people beneath the rubble in what authorities called the country’s strongest earthquake of the century.

The quake struck just days after Abelardo De La Espriella was sworn in as president, thrusting the new administration into its first major crisis, with memories still fresh of devastating twin earthquakes in neighboring Venezuela in June.

“The national government has all of its capabilities deployed to protect lives, assist affected communities and deliver aid wherever it is needed,” he said in a national address around 1 p.m. local time, upon declaring a national state of emergency.

“The first priority is rescuing the people trapped under the rubble.”

De La Espriella said preliminary reports indicated 111 dead and 87 injured, along with dozens of collapsed buildings and damaged homes.

The U.S. Geological Survey said the 7.4 magnitude quake struck at a depth of 107 km (66 miles). Colombia’s geological service said it was the strongest earthquake recorded in the country in the 21st century.

Reports from Choco, near the epicenter, were slowed by communications outages, with some areas still lacking cellphone service hours after the earthquake. Governor Nubia Carolina Cordoba said 12 people had been killed and 84 injured in the largely rural area.

The heaviest casualties appeared concentrated in Risaralda, part of Colombia’s coffee-growing region. Pereira, the department’s capital, suffered extensive damage, with rescue workers continuing to search collapsed buildings for survivors.

BUILDINGS CRUMBLE, AIRPORTS FORCED TO CLOSE

A four-story building crumbled in Pereira during the quake, according to Reuters-verified video, while footage from Manizales showed one of the side towers of the city’s landmark neo-Gothic cathedral collapsing and scattering debris onto nearby streets.

Reuters footage showed rescue workers, police and volunteers shoveling debris by hand and loading rubble into trucks as they searched for survivors trapped beneath collapsed buildings. Other footage showed damage to residential towers and emergency-service facilities, with debris crashing onto ambulances parked below.

Mauricio Andrade, a firefighter in Cali, said his team had rescued two adult women and two children from a collapsed building. As he spoke to Reuters, his team was preparing to rescue more people from the rubble.

“They are alive,” he said. “We are making space so we can free them and get them out.”

Juan Carlos Osorio told Caracol Television that the collapse of one building “sounded like a bomb,” as he helped remove debris from a collapsed structure in Cali.

“All of us neighbors are working together, forming human chains. We need heavy equipment. There are many people trapped.”

Colombia’s civil aviation authority suspended operations at several airports in the country’s west, including Pereira, Manizales, Quibdo, Armenia, Cartago and Buenaventura, while engineers carried out structural inspections.

RING OF FIRE

Colombia sits along the seismically active Pacific Ring of Fire and records thousands of mostly minor earthquakes each month.

Northwestern University seismologist Suzan van der Lee said the quake’s powerful magnitude, inland location and strike-slip motion may have amplified damage in populated valleys despite its considerable depth.

“This one was far below the crust, and in theory it shouldn’t cause as much shaking. At this magnitude, it did actually cause a lot of shaking,” she said.

The Colombian Geological Service said 21 aftershocks had been recorded by late Monday and warned that additional tremors were likely.

Colombia’s coffee region was devastated by a magnitude 6.2 earthquake in 1999 that killed more than 1,000 people, particularly around Armenia and Pereira.

Reporting by Nelson Bocanegra, Luis Jaime Acosta, Julia Symmes Cobb and Fabiola Aramburo; Additional reporting by Marco Trujillo in Cali and Sarah Morland in Mexico City, Writing by Kylie Madry and Daina Beth Solomon; Editing by Daniel Wallis, Paul Simao and Matthew Lewis

The pan-European STOXX 600 was little changed at 660.45 points. The energy sector led gains, rising 1.3%, as oil prices climbed for a fourth straight session

International News via Reuters:

Europe’s benchmark stock index held near a record high on Monday as investors paused ahead of a week packed with economic data, while uncertainty surrounding the Middle East conflict kept oil prices elevated.

The pan-European STOXX 600 was little changed at 660.45 points. The energy sector led gains, rising 1.3%, as oil prices climbed for a fourth straight session.

Iran said the U.S. must meet several conditions before it reopens the Strait of Hormuz, while signalling it was close to an agreement with Oman on new shipping lanes through the waterway. The strait is a critical energy corridor for Europe.

“Markets are really just in a period of digestion and wait-and-see,” said Kiran Ganesh, managing director, global head of investment communications at UBS.

Investors are also focused on euro zone employment data and U.S. consumer price figures due later this week for clues on the outlook for interest rates.

Softer-than-expected U.S. jobs data last week and strong corporate earnings on both sides of the Atlantic helped lift the STOXX 600 1.7% to a record high on Friday.

“Looking at corporate earnings, neither the crisis (in Middle East), nor tariffs, nor overshooting chip prices have derailed companies from doing good business,” said Ipek Ozkardeskaya, senior analyst at Swissquote.

The basic resources sector rose 0.9%, tracking firmer copper and precious metal prices, while technology shares gained 0.3%.

By contrast, the telecoms sector was the biggest decliner, falling 2.1%, as Deutsche Telekom and Vodafone slipped 3.2% and 3.1%, respectively.

Media stocks fell 1.6%, with Britain’s biggest advertising group WPP down 5% and French rival Publicis Group losing 1.4%. 

With the earnings season nearing an end, LSEG estimates show second-quarter STOXX 600 earnings are expected to rise nearly 21%, up from forecasts of about 12.5% in early May.

Plus500 rose 2.1% after the trading platform reported higher half-year core profit, helped by increased trading activity as it expanded in the U.S. and rolled out more products.

Vistry dropped 12.2% after the Financial Times reported credit insurer Allianz was cutting cover for the affordable homebuilder’s suppliers by up to 70%.

Coca-Cola HBC fell 4.8% after BNP Paribas cut its rating on the bottler to “neutral” from “outperform”.

($1 = 0.8659 euros)

Reporting by Tharuniyaa Lakshmi, Ragini Mathur, and Utkarsh Hathi in Bengaluru. Editing by Harikrishnan Nair and Mark Potter

The Caroline Bezengi is loaded with close to one million barrels of Russian oil bound for Asia and first reported difficulties on June 8 off Yemen, with two maritime ​security sources saying initial assessments indicated a blast had occurred onboard

International News via Reuters:

Leaking crude oil from a tanker grounded off a nature reserve in Oman has created a slick covering almost 400 square kilometres, the country’s government said on Monday.

The Caroline Bezengi is loaded with close to one million barrels of Russian oil bound for Asia and first reported difficulties on June 8 off Yemen, with two maritime ​security sources saying initial assessments indicated a blast had occurred onboard.

No party has taken responsibility for attacking the vessel.

Oman, in its first public disclosure on the environmental impact, said on Monday it was seeking to tackle the oil leak near the Hallaniyat Islands.

Oman’s Sultan Haitham bin Tarik issued a royal decree last year creating a nature reserve around the islands, an area that is home to wildlife including Arabian Sea humpback whales and Socotra cormorants.

The oil slick covers some 390 square km (150 square miles), Oman’s Environment Authority said in a statement carried by the state news agency, adding that there was no concern for facilities in the area including water desalination plants and tourist facilities.

Environmental group Greenpeace last week estimated the slick at around 600 square kilometres citing analysis of satellite imagery.

It extends northeast of the islands and is within an estimated seven kilometres of the coast, the authority said.

A spill of this scale requires dispersant be sprayed across the affected area by aircraft and the use of booms and other equipment to collect the oil before it reaches the shore or sinks to the sea floor, said Tony Gutierrez, professor of environmental microbiology and biotechnology at Edinburgh’s Heriot-Watt University.

“If this oil is kept offshore, the impact will be much less than if the oil reaches shallower waters and the actual coastline,” he said, citing the impact on diverse marine life such as coral, birds and fish.

“You could find oil still there years later. And that’s what happened with Exxon Valdez. Ten years down the line, there still were remnants of oil,” he said, referring to a 1989 spill in Alaska.

An analysis by Reuters of satellite imagery and shipping specialists showed the spill from the stranded 274-metre (900-foot) tanker was still spreading at the end of last month, raising concern about possible environmental damage.

The Caroline Bezengi loaded at Russia’s Black Sea port of Novorossiysk in April and passed through the Suez Canal at the end of May, ship-tracking data shows. 

Built in 2001, it is part of the so-called shadow fleet of older oil tankers used by Russia which lack Western insurance cover and sail under the flags of various nations to obscure their true ownership.

It was listed on public shipping databases as flying the Cameroon flag but was among 39 vessels de-listed from Cameroon’s ship registry in June.

The ship is subject to sanctions imposed by the European Union, Ukraine, the UK, Canada and Switzerland.

Its registered owner is Rentoor Shipmanagement Ltd and its manager is Villar Shipmanagement Ltd, according to LSEG data. Reuters could not immediately reach those firms, which appear to be based in China.       

Reporting by Nayera Abdallah, Menna Alaa El-Din, Jonathan Saul and Kate Abnett; editing by Barbara Lewis and Jason Neely

The highest reported death toll was in Pereira, a city in Colombia’s coffee-growing region, where Mayor Mauricio Salazar said 18 people had died

International News via Reuters:

At least 22 people were killed after a powerful earthquake struck western Colombia on Monday, bringing down buildings across several cities and leaving others trapped in the rubble, local authorities said.

The highest reported death toll was in Pereira, a city in Colombia’s coffee-growing region, where Mayor Mauricio Salazar said 18 people had died. In nearby Manizales, Mayor Jorge Eduardo Rojas said three people were killed.

One person died in Buenaventura, Colombia’s main Pacific port, when a building collapsed, trapping several people, Mayor Ligia del Carmen Cordoba said.

People remained trapped in Cali, one of Colombia’s largest cities, after more than two dozen structures collapsed, Mayor Alejandro Eder said. He added that the city had asked authorities in Bogota and Medellin to send disaster teams to support rescue efforts.

“At this point, two people have already been rescued alive, one elderly woman and one young girl. There are more people trapped,” Eder told Blu Radio. “We have at least 12 critical points and 25 collapsed structures that we are responding to.”

The quake’s epicenter was near San Jose del Palmar, in Choco, a sparsely populated province on Colombia’s Pacific Coast. Choco Governor Nubia Carolina Cordoba-Curi said there were injuries and significant damage in Quibdo, the provincial capital, and warned residents about aftershocks.

Colombia’s civil aviation authority said flights were suspended at airports in Pereira, Manizales, Quibdo, Armenia, Cartago and Buenaventura while inspectors checked for structural damage.

The country’s disaster agency said the quake, which occurred at 7:34 local time (1234 GMT) was felt in nine departments and all 32 departmental capitals, triggering evacuations and reports of damage. Colombia’s geological service pegged the magnitude at 7.4 and said the quake struck at a depth of 96 km (60 miles). The U.S. tsunami warning system said there was no tsunami threat.

Reuters witnesses in the Venezuelan border state of Tachira and the central-western city of Barquisimeto reported the quake had been felt there. Venezuela was hit by devastating twin earthquakes in June, which killed more than 6,000 people, mostly on the coast near the capital, Caracas.

Reporting by Nelson Bocanegra, Luis Jaime Acosta, Julia Symmes Cobb and Fabiola Aramburo; Writing by Kylie Madry; Editing by David Holmes and Paul Simao