Ana María Saavedra Caicedo lay under the rubble for hours with an injured arm and a fractured pelvis. When she was finally rescued, a harsh new reality awaited her. The reality was that she was the only survivor in her immediate family.
When a magnitude 7.4 earthquake struck western Colombia on August 10, the Saavedra Caicedo family was in their apartment in Cali, one of the hardest-hit cities.
Search and rescue operations at the scene began immediately and continued for several days. Family and friends took to the streets to ask for help and volunteered their time in rescue efforts.
triplets Ana Maria, Sofia and Isabella Saavedra Caicedo; their father Jair Saavedra; Their mother, Vicky Caicedo, and uncle, Diego Caicedo, were pulled from the rubble over the next few hours and days.
The parents were spotted hugging each other in their final moments. Sofia and Diego were also found dead. And Isabella’s body was the last to be pulled from the rubble, said Camila Martinez Sierra, the triplets’ cousin.
A GoFundMe campaign organized by the family for Ana Maria has already received thousands of donations. The campaign page says she has already undergone surgery and “now faces a long recovery process.”
“Our hearts are broken for the loss of our uncles Jairo and Vicky, and our cousins Sofia and Isabella,” Marinez Sierra posted on Instagram Friday. “Now is the time to stay united and stand by our cousin Anna. Every help, prayer, donation and sharing counts.”
The triplets had just graduated from college and were working together, according to a family fundraiser.
“They had dreams, plans and a whole life ahead of them,” the family wrote on the GoFundMe page. “We want Ana Maria to recover physically and mentally and build a solid foundation to restart her life without worrying about how she will pay for all her future expenses.”
Martinez-Sierra remembered her relatives by taking several photos and videos of extended family gatherings, trips, parties, and moments they shared together.
In one photo, the family, wearing matching white outfits and black hats, can be seen sitting by the pool, smiling broadly, in what appears to be a family reunion. Another photo shows them gathered around a bonfire at night.
“I can only look at these videos and photos with a heart full of memories mixed with love, nostalgia, and a pain I don’t know how to explain yet,” she wrote in an Instagram post.
“Here are our reunions, our laughs, our hugs, our family moments, my uncle, my triplets… moments that I lived through never imagining that one day I would see these photos in such a different light,” Martinez-Sierra said.
The Saavedra Caicedo family is among at least 294 people confirmed killed. Colombia’s National Disaster Risk Management Department said an additional 320 people were missing and nearly 4,000 injured in the quake.
More than 12,000 homes were destroyed and more than 100 buildings collapsed. The earthquake was the worst to hit Colombia in decades. Rescuers continue to work through the rubble as families share urgent pleas on social media in hopes of tracking down their missing loved ones.
“None of us could have imagined that a photo would become such a precious memory, or that a hug that seemed so ordinary would become something that will remain in our hearts forever,” Martinez-Sierra said.
“This earthquake changed our lives in a matter of seconds,” Martinez-Sierra said. “This incident was a most painful reminder to us that nothing is guaranteed and that hugs, phone calls, ‘I love you’s, visits, and visits have been postponed over and over again.”
