The earthquake hit Colombia's coffee-growing region, and toppled tower blocks, hotels, and historic churches in Armenia.

An undetermined number of injured victims (many of them unidentified) were carried by airplane to different cities (mainly Bogotá, Medellín, and Cali), and out of the country.

Some factors involved in the disappearance of these people are the security issues due to the riots, the collapse of communications and roads, the lack of coordination of the rescue forces, dispatch of the injured victims and identification of the corpses.

[3] Looting was widespread in Armenia after residents, disturbed by the slow movement of the relief effort, broke into food stores and stole supplies.

[3] Then Colombian president Andrés Pastrana postponed a trip to Germany to attend a World Bank meeting to view the destruction himself.

About 8,000 coffee farms were completely or partially destroyed, and 13,000 structures of several kinds of enterprises and industries were damaged and went temporarily or permanently out of service.

[4] Gómez Tapias, Jorge; Montes Ramírez, Nohora E.; Almanza Meléndez, María F.; Alcárcel Gutiérrez, Fernando A.; Madrid Montoya, César A.; Diederix, Hans (2015).