At least 25 people were reported dead after a powerful earthquake measuring 7.4 on the Richter scale shook central and western Colombia on Monday morning. The tremors began at 7.34 am local time and lasted four minutes, according to the Colombian Geological Service, which said the epicenter was located in the western municipality of San José del Palmar, located in a rural, mountainous area in the Chocó department.

The strongest quake recorded in the country in the last decade was even felt in Panama and Ecuador, and comes less than two months after neighboring Venezuela experienced two back-to-back earthquakes that have killed over 6,000 people.

So far, authorities in the towns of Manizales, Pereira and Buenaventura have reported fatalities. Damage was also reported in Cali and Armenia. Cali, Pereira, Armenia and Manizales are together home to over 3.5 million people, making it likely that the casualty count will keep rising.

The newly inaugurated president of Colombia, Abelardo de la Espriella, said in a message on the social platform X that a Unified Command Center is being set up to coordinate action. The far right leader said he would travel to Pereira, the town that seems most acutely affected by the tremor and where communication problems have been reported.

In Cali, which is Colombia’s third most populated city, firefighters were checking buildings for structural damage after roofing and other elements collapsed. At around 8:30 a.m. there were reports of cuts to utility services including water, electricity and gas.

Colombia is a country at high risk for quakes as it sits on three tectonic plates. There is an average of 50,000 tremors a month, but most of them are too weak to be felt by human beings. In 1999, a magnitude 6.2 quake shook the city of Armenia, killing nearly 1,000 people. Earlier, in 1983, a quake in Popayán resulted in 287 fatalities.