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How long does a new president get before disaster testing arrives? For Colombia's Abelardo De La Espriella, the answer was four days.

A powerful 7.4 magnitude earthquake struck western Colombia early Monday, killing at least 111 people and injuring 87 more across several cities, with additional victims still believed trapped beneath collapsed buildings. The disaster landed squarely on the doorstep of a presidency that had barely begun.

A Presidency's First Test, Days After Taking Office

De La Espriella was sworn in as Colombia's president just days before the ground shook. Instead of easing into the job, he found himself declaring a national state of emergency and addressing a shaken country by midday Monday.

"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 his national address, before turning to the most urgent task at hand. "The first priority is rescuing the people trapped under the rubble."

For a country watching its newest leader navigate his first real crisis, the moment carries weight beyond the immediate disaster — a test of crisis response before the new administration has had time to fully settle in.

The Science Behind the Shaking

According to the U.S. Geological Survey, the quake struck at a depth of 107 kilometers near San Jose del Palmar, in Choco — a sparsely populated province along Colombia's Pacific coast. Despite its remote epicenter, the tremor was powerful enough to be felt in major cities across the country, a reach that speaks to both the quake's magnitude and the depth at which it occurred.

That combination — a strong magnitude paired with a deep-seated origin — often means shaking is distributed more broadly across a wider area, even if the most severe structural damage tends to concentrate closer to the epicenter itself.

A Region Still Recovering From Its Last Disaster

Monday's earthquake didn't strike a region with no recent experience of this kind of devastation. Memories remain fresh of the twin earthquakes that devastated neighboring Venezuela in June, disasters that are still fresh in the region's collective memory as Colombia now confronts its own catastrophe.

For a new government facing its first emergency, that regional history offers little comfort — only a reminder of how quickly recovery efforts can stretch on, and how much is riding on how the next several days unfold.

What Comes Next

With search-and-rescue efforts ongoing and the full scope of the damage still emerging, the death toll of 111 may not be final. For now, Colombia's newest president finds his administration defined not by the policies he campaigned on, but by how quickly his government can reach the people still waiting beneath the rubble.