JUANA SUMMERS, HOST:
Rescue crews continue working around the clock to reach victims of the 7.4 earthquake that struck western Colombia Monday. The death toll, now at around 265, is expected to rise as rubble is cleared from hundreds of collapsed structures. In Cali, Colombia's third largest city, authorities and the mayor are rushing to help victims. John Otis reports.
ALEJANDRO EDER: (Speaking Spanish).
JOHN OTIS, BYLINE: Mayor Alejandro Eder says he hasn't slept in days. Still, he makes time to thank volunteers at this food bank for earthquake victims. Since the disaster, he describes doing everything from coordinating rescue teams to monitoring traffic through neighborhoods hit hardest by the quake, and he even lets me tag along.
EDER: When you're the mayor of a city, your team is set up to govern everyday life. But when something like this happens, suddenly, everything else is almost dropped and you just have to focus on the emergency.
(Speaking Spanish).
UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #1: (Speaking Spanish).
OTIS: Eder, who is 50, and went to grad school in the U.S., was doing a radio interview when the quake hit Monday morning. After confirming that his family was safe, he got to work.
EDER: So we quickly identified 56 building collapses. Then immediately, we sent teams out there to see if there were possibly - like, if they were residential buildings or warehouses or whatever.
OTIS: With saving lives the top priority, he called on his fellow mayors and Colombia's newly inaugurated president to immediately send help.
EDER: And by Monday evening, we had, you know, 150 rescuers arrive in the city.
OTIS: So far, Eder's efforts appear to be paying off. Rescuers have already pulled 85 survivors from under the rubble.
UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #2: Let's go.
OTIS: And crews, like this one, at a pair of fallen apartment towers in Cali's south side, are still at work. Until recently, Cali had been on a roll. It was host to a major U.N. conference. It attracts bird-watchers from all over the world and is the international capital of salsa music. Eder loves to tout Cali's large population of Afro-Colombian entrepreneurs.
EDER: One of the things that I've been aiming for is to consolidate Cali as the Atlanta of Latin America.
OTIS: Now, Eder has to scale back those ambitions. He's already set up food and medical tents at a fairgrounds, where a large music festival was set to start yesterday.
EDER: Obviously, we had to suspend it, but we're using everything that was set up like an impromptu distribution center. So it's kind of like a blessing in disguise.
OTIS: His actions are earning the mayor high marks from Cali residents, like Isabela Jaramillo, who is handing out donated clothes to quake victims.
ISABELA JARAMILLO: I think he's responding, as we say in Colombia, a la altura. He's doing a great job, as I can see.
OTIS: But the mayor also has vocal critics. Street crime has long been a problem, while Cali and surrounding areas were hit by terrorist attacks ahead of June's presidential election. Eder's family owns one of Colombia's largest sugar mills, and his father served as Cali's mayor in the 1980s. As a result, some paint him as an out-of-touch member of Colombia's ruling class.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
UNIDENTIFIED CROWD: (Shouting in Spanish).
OTIS: In this video, widely shared on social media, you can see Eder inspecting damaged homes just hours after the quake. However, residents showered him with insults and rocks, one of which hit the mayor on the head. He was not seriously hurt, and amid the earthquake ruins, he remains optimistic.
EDER: It's not going to push us back. It's going to push us forward.
OTIS: He predicts that Cali will get massive federal funding to rebuild the many homes, hospitals and schools that were destroyed.
EDER: You can sit down and start crying, or you can see it as a huge opportunity to rebuild 167 schools as brand-new, modern schools, you know? So I think that's the way you have to look at it.
OTIS: Then Eder excused himself, saying he had to catch a nap.
For NPR News, I'm John Otis in Cali, Colombia.
(SOUNDBITE OF LUPE FIASCO SONG, "OUTSIDE") Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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