At least 47 people were killed and dozens of buildings collapsed in cities across western Colombia after a powerful 7.4-magnitude earthquake struck the South American nation, trapping residents under debris, leaving more injured and forcing people to evacuate their homes as far as the capital of Bogota.

The epicentre was in San Jose Del Palmar, a community of about 4,800 people in the Choco region about 250 miles (400 kilometres) west of Bogota, the US Geological Survey and Colombia’s counterpart reported.

The USGS said it struck at a depth of 66 miles (107 kilometres).

The quake also was felt in neighbouring Ecuador and Panama, though minimal damage was reported there.

Local officials confirmed that at least 18 people had been killed in the city of Pereira and two in the city of Manizales.

The earthquake left cities across the west of the country ravaged, and residents picking through the pieces of the rubble amid concerns by authorities of aftershocks.

Jorge Moncayo, a 64-year-old taxi driver in Colombia’s third-biggest city, Cali, said he saw plumes of dust shoot up across the city from his home in the mountains as buildings collapsed after the earthquake.

Residents in the city and rescue workers were already searching the rubble of collapsed buildings on Monday morning.

“My entire house shook,” he said. “I’ve never lived through such a powerful earthquake.”

Colombia’s Geological Service said on Monday that it had been “the highest magnitude earthquake registered in Colombia in the last decade” and that it had been followed by two 2.8 and 4.8 magnitude aftershocks.

Authorities also reported that flights were suspended in the airports of Manizales, Quibdo, Armenia, Cartago y Buenaventura and Pereira.

In Pereira, photos and videos published by local media showed pieces of the airport ceiling falling down on travellers taking shelter and screaming, and people running through rubble in a panic.

Pereira’s mayor, Mauricio Salazar, told a local radio station that at least 18 people had died and that many more were trapped under “a massive quantity of collapsed buildings”.

In Manizales, a city nestled in the coffee producing mountains of Colombia, one of the towers of the neo-Gothic cathedral collapsed and fell on the nave.

Jorge Eduardo Rojas, the mayor of Manizales, said two people had died in the city “because of the quake” and asked residents to stay outside in case of aftershocks.

Choco governor Nubia Cordoba said on social media that “there are injuries and serious damage to buildings” in the regional capital of Quibdo, a city of about 130,000 people.

She did not provide further details.

Footage shared by local media outlets showed homes and small buildings collapsing in the cities of Pereira, Cali and Quibdo.

Authorities in the rural state of Choco, the epicentre of the quake, reported injured people and damaged buildings in the capital, but provided few details.

In Cali, a city two million people, mayor Alejandro Eder said that residents were trapped in at least 19 buildings that had collapsed.

Small earthquakes, known as “temblores”, are common in central and western Colombia, but those above 6.0 magnitude are rare.

In 1999, a 6.2 magnitude quake near the city of Armenia, killed more than 1,100 people.

Colombia’s newly inaugurated President Abelardo de la Espriella said on Monday that he had personally taken charge of the government’s response to the emergency in San Jose del Palmar following the earthquake that struck the country.

“You are not alone. The state is present and taking action,” he said.

The earthquakes left many in the Andean nation unnerved after two back-to-back quakes devastated neighbouring Venezuela in late June destroyed hundreds of buildings and killed more than 5,000 people.

At the same time the quake brought down buildings in Colombia, desperate families in Venezuela continued to search the ruins for the bodies of their loved ones.