Over 100 dead after Colombia earthquake

0:00Hello, I'm Julian Warwicker. Thank you for downloading the BBC World Tonight podcast for Monday 10 August. A strong earthquake hits Colombia less than two months after the devastation in neighbouring Venezuela. More than 100 people have been killed, but there are fears of a higher death toll. We hear from those close to the epicentre. The largest number of migrants crossing from France to Britain in a single vessel has made for some alarming images. 230 people were on board, in fact. Does this suggest a change of approach by the people smugglers to use ever bigger dinghies? And 40 years after its release, we revisit the controversy surrounding Paul Simon's most successful album, Graceland.

0:44Colombia's new president, Abelado de la Esprilia, was only sworn in on Friday. Today he faces the huge challenge of dealing with what's been described as his country's strongest earthquake in a decade. The 7.4 magnitude quake struck in the western Choco region between the cities of Cali and Medellin. It was felt in the capital Bogota and as far away as neighbouring Venezuela, a country still recovering from a devastating earthquake less than two months ago. At least 111 people are known to have been killed in Colombia, but the fear is, as so often happens when remote regions are affected by an earthquake, that the death toll could rise considerably in the coming hours.

1:29Several people have posted videos on social media showing the effects of the quake, including this one from Kali, 130 miles to the south-west of Manizales, the major town nearest to the quake's epicentre. You can hear the sounds of chaos and confusion on the streets.

1:54The mayor of Cali, Alejandro Eder, spoke to Tim Franks on the BBC World Service. Around the city we've had actually 32 confirmed building collapses. We have people trapped in these buildings. We've managed to rescue 38 people thus far. And unfortunately we do have some fatal victims from this quake. These first 48 hours are key to getting people out, to getting people to safety. So right now we're tending to this emergency primarily with our own firefighters and our own search and rescue teams. We have a UZAR search and rescue team here in Cali, and we're waiting for more teams to arrive from other major cities in Colombia.

2:38Do you have enough fire and rescue crew and enough lifting equipment to do the job? Are you simply going to have to wait until you can get help from elsewhere? Our fire and rescue crews are working. We're working alongside the Colombian Red Cross, the Colombian Army, and also the Civil Defence Force, which is a volunteer emergency response team. But we are still waiting for additional search and rescue teams from the rest of Colombia. Our teams are very well trained. We actually sent our search and rescue team, we just sent it to Venezuela. So they have very recent experience in these types of events.

3:19I remember when we sent our firefighters to Venezuela, I spoke about it with the fire chief. And I said, you know, this will be good training for our guys. I hope we don't have to use them. And look at this, you know, just a few weeks later, here we are. the mayor of Cali. Well, listening to that is Dr. Morgan Page, who's a seismologist at the U.S. Geological Survey in Pasadena, California. Just how severe a quake is this, doctor? Well, the U.S. just estimates that about 1.5 million people were exposed to very strong shaking. So it is quite a significant earthquake. And unfortunately, people who are in very non-resilient structures, very weak structures, there have been a lot of building collapses and we are seeing now at least over 100 fatalities.

4:057.4 magnitude, that's clearly a high figure. It's also often about the depth of the quake, isn't it? That's right. This earthquake was at intermediate depth, so 110 kilometers deep. So that is mitigating the most extreme strong ground motion. So it's actually weaker motion than was felt near the epicenter in the Venezuela earthquakes. But because it is deeper, it is affecting a very large area. You mentioned the Venezuela quake. Is it possible to say, and I know quakes are notoriously unpredictable, but is there a connection? Can there be a connection? I doubt there is a connection given the distance that these earthquakes are apart.

4:46This is a very active area where one plate is abducting under another. So we expect earthquakes to happen in this area as they have in the past. What of building quality? You touched on this a moment ago. Clearly, that has a huge bearing on casualty numbers. What do we know about that in this area? What difference can it make? It makes a huge difference. In the 1999 earthquake in Colombia, which killed nearly 2 ,000 people, most of the deaths occurred in the older construction that was not as earthquake resilient as modern construction. So in these earthquakes, it tends to be this human factor of what the construction is like, mixed with the shaking that really causes the deaths and the damage.

5:28We heard the mayor of Calia a moment ago talking about some of the buildings that have collapsed there. That was, what, about 100 miles away from the epicenter. Is that the kind of level of serious destruction you would expect in this context? This is the level of destruction. Unfortunately, we expected an earthquake of this size. The USGS estimated after the earthquake occurred, before we had information coming in from the ground, that an earthquake of this size would cause between most likely 100 and 1 ,000 fatalities. And unfortunately, that estimate seems to be bearing out, given that we've already had 111 deaths reported.

6:05And when you've seen quakes in this part of the world before, and clearly you mentioned Venezuela, and there's talk there of building better constructions subsequently. Do you see significant changes made to the way buildings are erected once something like this has happened? I can't speak to what's happening on the ground in Venezuela after some of these earthquakes, but we do know that it's the construction that really makes the difference. These deaths are preventable if the construction is solid, if we know how to design buildings to be safe from earthquakes. A final word on the geography here.

6:42This took place quite close to the coast of Colombia. Is there a risk of tsunamis in a circumstance such as this? I doubt it, given that this earthquake was onshore, given the depths, and I haven't heard of any tsunami impacts. So it's the next few days we now have to look at, isn't it, in terms of the rescue process, who can help, and clearly a fear that this death toll might rise. That's right. We unfortunately expect the death tolls to rise given the number of buildings that we already know have collapsed. We're also monitoring the aftershocks very closely. Luckily, there have not been many aftershocks, only one magnitude 5, which is good news.

7:20And it's about the rescue services, not just from Colombia, but maybe from other countries as well that can get in there and hopefully help as soon as possible. Yeah, the clock is ticking. That's for sure. Thank you, Dr Morgan Page, seismologist at the US Geological Survey in Pasadena, California.

7:41Now, 230 people on an inflatable vessel 15 metres long. Those are the stark figures surrounding today's unwelcome record, which was broken in the English Channel, the largest number of people to cross from France to Britain in a single vessel. It was so full that many passengers had to dangle their legs in the water, and according to French maritime officials, the boat was showing signs of buckling. It reached the UK in the early hours, and inevitably the images of it and the numbers involved have added to the already heated debate about migrant arrivals on Britain's shores. The number of crossings overall is on course to be lower in 2026.

8:21It's down 43 % so far this year compared with last. However, the Shadow Home Secretary, Chris Philp, isn't convinced. Well, this underlines the fact we have a borders crisis and Shabana Mahmood's claims to have this under control have descended into farce. The French authorities should have stopped this boat. Just a few days ago, I saw a boat nearly this size embarking from knee-deep water. The French gendarmes did nothing. Shabana Mahmood is handing over£660 million of our money and the French authorities are doing nothing. Well, Mykna Kwebos is a senior researcher at the Migration Observatory, focusing on small boat crossings and illegal migration.

9:03So does today point to a growing trend of gangs using ever bigger boats? Absolutely. We've seen this trend of gangs trying to fit as many people as possible into one boat ever since the small boat route started to be significant back in 2018. Back then, we were looking at 20 to 30 people in a boat. That's steadily gone up to the point where in the last year or so, the average was around 65. However, this year, in the last couple of months especially, we're seeing more and more of these extraordinarily large boats. 165 was the record set last month. And now, as you said, we're up to 230, a very, very large number.

9:43And what's driving that? We can't be absolutely sure, but it's likely to do with the increased pressure. that smuggling gangs face in and around the French coast. So the UK government, in cooperation with the French, the German and other European police forces, they've put a lot of effort into both making it harder for boats to leave the shore, but also trying to disrupt supply chain, confiscate boats and engines, make it so that there are fewer boats available for smugglers. Now, this might have had an effect in the decrease in numbers, but it's also given smugglers an incentive to keep packing as many people as possible in one boat.

10:21But where do they get these huge dinghies from? We don't fully understand what's going on in terms of the supply chain. We do know from the government that a lot of their efforts so far have been focused on a supply chain going from France through Germany and through the Balkans. We've seen a lot of cooperation on supply chains with Bulgarians and Turkish police forces. We don't know to what extent a lot of action in that direction has made smuggling gangs find a new way of bringing these larger boats to France, but we simply don't know yet. I mean, your reference to a new way suggests that each government is faced with this dilemma constantly, isn't it?

11:05You know, no sooner do they feel they're making progress in one direction, another problem opens up. Absolutely. And that's the hardest challenge to solve when it comes to unauthorized migration, both for the UK as well as other European countries. These gangs are extremely adaptable. They're extremely inventive. They're extremely flexible. And that gives them the ability to very quickly respond to challenges from the authorities. It ends up being a bit of a game of cat and mouse there. And they're always trying to stay ahead of each other. And when you look at the images of what's arrived in the last 24 hours, this vessel with 230 people on board, buckling in the water, we're told by some of those who saw it, it is incredibly dangerous, isn't it?

11:51It's incredibly worrying as well. As you say, having that many people in one boat, boats that weren't made to transport that many people, is very dangerous. At the same time, we're seeing longer and longer journeys on these ever more crowded boats. So boats leaving from Belgium, leaving from further down south, journeys of up to 24 hours. Now, longer journeys and more crowded boats significantly increases the risk that we'll see another tragedy in the channel on an unprecedented scale. So what of the numbers? You touched on this a moment ago. A degree of effectiveness from both the French and the Germans on the small boats issue.

12:28But how do the numbers look? I mean, the government talks, for example, of numbers coming down this year. That's absolutely true. We have seen numbers go down for over nine months now. If we look just at this year, we've had around 15 ,000 people arrive by small boats. That's down 43 % compared to last year. We don't know exactly why this happens. There might be a variety of factors, but policy is likely playing a role as well. Mykna Kwebos, senior researcher at the Migration Observatory. Now, the Prime Minister, Andy Burnham, is beginning his summer cost-of-living tour this week, and it's a tour that comes with announcements.

13:08Today's focuses on subscriptions, our ever-growing tendency to sign up to deals and offers online and then not keep tabs on them, or worse still, forget about them altogether. He says he's making subscriptions easier to cancel and he wants companies to be compelled to make it clear when contracts auto-renew at a higher price. It's an issue many of us have encountered, including Helen Cole from York, who contacted the BBC's Your Voice. I thought initially I was just getting a couple of packets of collagen. Within a number of days, it was just making me feel absolutely dreadful. So I reached out and I had read they had this amazing guarantee that if you're not happy, we will refund it, no quibble.

13:52I didn't actually hear anything back and we were in the process of moving house and I just let it go, really. When you say reached out, how did you try and make contact with them at that point? I don't know if I did it either directly on Facebook or whether I emailed them. But it wasn't a phone call, I'm guessing. No. And there is no telephone number for them. You cannot speak to these people at all. Everything is done through email, which is really laborious because you're having a to and fro conversation. That turns into weeks. And it was in April. I woke up in the morning and was just checking my emails.

14:27and it said, oh, your order has gone through£79.50, at which point I was completely shocked. I said, I've tried to go onto your website and I wasn't aware that I'd signed up for it. Did they respond at that point? Yes, same, basically. We did kindly send you an email reminder three days before your next charge was due to go through. That was sent, I think, at 5.40 in the morning and it said, if you need to edit, you have to contact us within 15 minutes. So they think you subscribed or they say you subscribed. You're not sure you did. No. But the struggle then was to unsubscribe. Yes, going onto their website was a nightmare.

15:06It just goes round and round and round in a loop. So from that point onwards, I think I've got 23 emails over a period of about six weeks. They were able to refund me for the second order they sent out. And they said, well, also, we're going to refund you for the original project that you weren't suited to. Now, that refund has never, ever reached my account. And as far as you know, I mean, are you still in this deal with this company, even though you don't want to be? No, as far as I know, I'm not. The reason I've managed to stop it is because I've been in and blocked them on my Barclays app, so they can't take any more money from me.

15:41Helen Cole in York. Well, Andy Burnham's plan here isn't entirely new. Keir Starmer introduced a package of measures along similar lines in April when he was Prime Minister. But Mr Burnham says he's bringing them forward. The Shadow Chancellor, Mel Stride, has described the measures as reheated and said Andy Burnham has already run out of ideas. Well, Sarah Pennells is a consumer finance specialist for Royal London, the pensions and insurance provider. Sarah, good evening. Good evening. What's actually going to change as a result of this announcement, do you think? Well, I think there's a couple of things that will change that could make a real difference to people like Helen.

16:18So firstly, there will have to be sort of clear and simple information before you sign up to a subscription about the fact you are actually signing up to a subscription and not a one-off purchase. And secondly, if you're being enticed in with a free or discounted price, then you'll have to get a reminder saying, actually, after this, you're going to get into a contract and this is going to automatically renew. I think one thing that's going to make a big difference is it's going to be easier to cancel. So if you sign up online, you should be able to cancel online. And some people like to speak to somebody on the phone.

16:52Some people don't. And at the moment, there's no sort of uniformity about how you can do that. And also there will be a 14 day cooling off period after a free or discounted trial ends and before you're then locked into that sort of, you know, longer term subscription. And I think that could make quite a difference to people who sign up to subscriptions. This is under the cost of living heading. Does it make a difference under that heading, do you think? Potentially it could. The government's own figures that they released in April ahead of this announcement coming in a year's time, as it was then, show that there are about 155 active subscriptions.

17:30That's about three per adult, which is a lot. Yeah, 155 million, I think you mean, don't you? Sorry, 155 million. Apologies, yes. So three per adult. And they cost about£170 a year. Well, if you've got a subscription that you don't want and it's costing you that kind of money, OK, we're not talking in the realms of kind of mortgage or rent payments or even energy bills. But our financial resilience research shows that about one in eight people have less than£50 a month left over once they've paid for those real basics. So even fairly small amounts, if you're paying it without realising or without being able to get out of that subscription, it could actually make a difference.

18:09How much have we changed our habits here in relatively recent years, this sudden rush to subscribe to so many different things? I think we've changed our habits quite a lot. And I think there's several factors. One is Covid pandemic. So obviously what we could do in terms of going to the shops was very limited. So we got used to the idea of ordering more things online. And secondly, I think we are just used to living our lives much more through our phones and through apps. And there is that convenience. And I've really noticed that, you know, there have been things that we have signed up for for a number of years.

18:46Newspapers, magazines, TV on demand. But there are things like cleaning products, pet food, toilet roll that you can get on subscription now. That maybe we're not used to shopping on subscription. And when we see a price, we assume it's a one off. In some cases, you are given that option. In other cases, it seems it's subscription only. And if you don't want to have a regular delivery of dog food or whatever it is, then you can't actually buy that product. You mentioned Helen, and obviously we heard from her in York at the start of all this. And she, I think you're suggesting, is pretty typical.

19:19She did admit that she didn't maybe read all the small print at the start of this deal. But the fact that she then faced such a tortuous struggle to get out of it, how typical is that just now? I think it's not, it varies. There are some companies that make it very easy for you to sort of get out of a subscription. There are others, sadly, that don't, and some that ignore your correspondence. I would say that if you are in this situation where you've done what you should do to cancel a subscription and you're not hearing from the company, then actually you do have some rights with your bank or credit card provider.

19:53So if you pay by credit card and you've cancelled and the company has ignored you asking for a cancellation, Contact your credit card provider. They shouldn't allow any more money to come out. If you pay by direct debit, you can do the same thing with your bank. Sarah, thank you very much indeed for coming on. The main headlines so far on The World Tonight, a powerful earthquake has hit Western Colombia, killing at least 111 people and damaging more than 1 ,000 buildings. The Conservatives say it's beyond a joke that the French authorities did not stop a boat crossing the Channel carrying a record 230 migrants.

20:28and almost three-quarters of England is now officially in drought. The BBC has seen evidence that suggests a South African police detective was killed by the country's special forces. France Matipa was looking into their alleged role in the disappearance of a suspected Islamic State group militant before he was found shot dead in his car on 6 August 2023. Matipa's family and former colleagues are now demanding justice. Seven Special Forces soldiers and one other are due to stand trial in connection with the detective's murder. Of those, seven are accused, alongside four others, of abducting and murdering the suspected IS militant.

21:12They deny the allegations. From the BBC World Service, Dino Matani has been investigating in South Africa.

21:24So this is the final road on Mathiba's last journey. It is indeed. And we are about to, in just a few metres, approach the site where he died. On a Sunday evening in August 2023, Lieutenant Colonel Franz Matiba was found shot dead in his car by the side of the N1 motorway outside Pretoria. The 53-year-old detective was a veteran of the Hawks, an elite police unit whose responsibilities include investigating crimes against the state. He was the finest man. He was a trusted and loyal man. That is how France was. Brigadier Paulina Sekopela was Matiba's commanding officer. She says Matiba was killed while investigating whether Special Forces soldiers were behind the disappearance of suspected IS militant Abdallah Abadiga in December 2022.

22:19Matiba had applied for a court order to force the military to hand over information. But after one meeting with the special forces, he made a chilling prediction to his boss.

22:39Police say that two days later, on 6 August 2023, Matiba was lured to a petrol station in eastern Pretoria, where he believed he would meet an informant. But they didn't show up. BBC Africa Eye has seen CCTV pictures which show Matiba driving away on the motorway with a black BMW following him. He was shot dead shortly after. Seven Special Forces soldiers and one other are due to stand trial in connection with the detective's murder. Of those, seven are accused, alongside four others, of abducting and murdering Abadiga. They deny the allegations. Give me a lighter. You can just light the papers.

23:24Over a backyard barbecue, Colonel Tolly Frigdenberg, a former counter-terrorism police chief, tells BBC Africa Eye that South Africans should be concerned by Matiba's murder. The late killers of Matiba are persons that are supposed to protect us. Who can we trust? Can we trust our government? He believes Matiba was close to uncovering the truth behind Abadiga's disappearance. Colonel Fruchtenberg has revealed that before he went missing, Aberdeega was being used as an intelligence asset. But he thinks his handlers underestimated him. I cannot say which intelligence organisation used him. Which intelligence organisation, domestic or international, I will go that far.

24:09Most probably he's laying somewhere in a shallow grave. The BBC contacted the Department of Home Affairs and the South African National Defence Force for comment. They did not respond. Meanwhile, three years on from Matiba's death, his daughter Basitsana says her family are still waiting for his killers to be held to account. I'm never going to hug my dad anymore. Why? Why my dad? Because he was doing his job. We need justice. We need justice. Dino Matani reporting from South Africa. Now, in the past few minutes, the government has announced plans to give local councils more powers to block the opening of new vape shops and bookmakers on the high street.

24:59Andy Burnham says that for many people, the high streets they grew up with have been hollowed out and become unrecognisable. And he says the new powers will help put local communities back in control. Eamon O 'Brien is the Labour leader of Bury Council and is chair of the Local Government Association, which represents councils across England. Welcome to the programme, Eamon O 'Brien. Good evening. Good evening. How much of a problem are bookmakers and vape shops really, well, in your town, but beyond that? Well, it's a daily reminder, I think, to many people of a decline that's happening right across the country.