Earthquake fractures the silence of Valle del Cauca cemeteries as damaged sites seek renewal

The earthquake that shook Cali on Aug. 10 also tore open the walls separating the living from the dead. At San José de Siloé Cemetery, more than a dozen coffins became visible after a 20-meter wall collapsed onto a street in the El Cortijo neighborhood.

The magnitude 7.4 quake caused severe damage at cemeteries across Cali and Valle del Cauca. Mausoleums were damaged, church domes were affected and historic sites were left marked by cracks and debris.

Yet at San José de Siloé, the burial vaults built into one side of the cemetery suffered no internal structural damage. The cemetery, opened in 1952 on the mountainside of Siloé and neighboring low-income districts, is administered by the Archdiocese of Cali.

The remains in the ossuaries of Inés Obando de Mera and Paulina Ramírez, both recorded on 1967 headstones, were not damaged. The same was true of the remains of Agustina de Arenas, Juan B. Arenas and Sara Cobo. Their names remain on the weathered markers as workers repair the site.

Builder Diego Aguirre, from Palmira, and his assistants Elkin Avendaño and Rodolfo Erazo are reconstructing the wall block by block in Garden K, one of the cemetery’s six sections. Their work continues amid prayers, machinery and concrete, with the aim of restoring calm to the cemetery and the surrounding neighborhood.