President Abelardo de la Espriella’s administration pulled detailed disaster data from public view, raising concerns about the emergency response and future crises.
Not long after the ground began shaking across western Colombia on Aug. 10(opens in new tab), the country’s disaster response agency began putting numbers to the tragedy.
On its website, the National Unit for Disaster Risk Management(opens in new tab), known as the UNGRD, published a public table listing the number of dead, missing and injured, as well as the number of homes affected — an updated tally that served response teams and families trying to find their loved ones beneath the rubble. According to the agency, the earthquake has left more than 300 people dead(opens in new tab).
Then, two days after the magnitude 7.4 earthquake, the tally disappeared.
The agency removed the interactive table where the data had been published. And since then, key information — although less detailed — about the disaster has come primarily from newly sworn-in President Abelardo de la Espriella or through UNGRD bulletins issued after public statements by the president. Figures reported by the president, the UNGRD and the Instituto Nacional de Medicina Legal have also not always matched.
For journalists covering the earthquake and organizations that advocate for access to public information, the table going down is more than a change in format. They say the new administration’s approach could complicate the emergency response and offers an early glimpse of how the government may handle future crises.
“What they want is an information monopoly to give the impression that things are getting done when, in reality, there are many shortcomings that are not being addressed,” Claudia Julieta Duque, an elected board member of the Colombian Journalists’ Union (Síncope), told LatAm Journalism Review (LJR). “There’s a lot of improvisation.”
Ronny Suárez, a public health journalist who became known for publishing statistics during the COVID-19 pandemic, quickly looked for ways to contribute to the earthquake response through his reporting.
“I went into what I call ‘Saiyan’ mode to — as I had already done during the pandemic — start helping with information, information, information, information,” Suárez told LJR. His focus is producing reports to encourage donations, document cases in affected cities and municipalities, verify data and consolidate earthquake figures.
As Suárez searched for verifiable data, he obtained the UNGRD’s interactive table, called the “Situational Damage Assessment.” He shared it(opens in new tab) on social media on Aug. 12, but 42 minutes later had to report that the table had been blocked(opens in new tab).
“I don’t know if I could necessarily call this censorship, maybe it is and I’m not realizing it, but there is clearly an obstruction of public information,” Suárez said. “What’s strange is that if it was public, why block it? It’s information they are giving anyway. It’s not clear why that dashboard remains private.”
Síncope was among the first organizations to reject the blocking of the information, calling it the president’s “first act of censorship against the press” by De la Espriella. In a statement, the union said there is no legal provision allowing the information to be blocked, including Decree 1171(opens in new tab), under which a national disaster was declared in the country.
“With the censorship of the real-time reporting dashboard, the national government chose to prioritize control of information through periodic press conferences,” the statement said. “These, however, do not replace access to public information to which all journalists(opens in new tab) and society at large are entitled, especially in situations of emergency and disaster.”
El Veinte, an organization that advocates for freedom of expression, also spoke out about the restriction, saying it undermines transparency and obstructs journalistic work.
“The public interest in the information that can be obtained through this platform is even greater in the context of a humanitarian emergency,” El Veinte wrote(opens in new tab). “Closing access to territorial figures on destroyed homes, affected roads or displaced populations not only harms journalistic work, it takes away a fundamental tool that allows citizens and civil society organizations to oversee the government’s response.”
The restriction of public access is just one example of a communications problem within the government, Duque said. The figures that were on the table and are now being sent through daily bulletins have fluctuated in ways that raise questions, Duque and Suárez said.
The platform was blocked the same day the new head of the UNGRD office assumed the position. His predecessor under the government of now-former President Gustavo Petro did not vacate the post until Aug. 12, five days after the change in government and two days after the earthquake. The Petro and De la Espriella governments — which have opposing ideologies — did not conduct a formal transition, which has been among the criticisms following the earthquake.
The person selected as the administration’s spokesperson, Carolina Gómez, has also not formally assumed her role. Gómez has shared information on X as a “volunteer spokesperson,” according to her own description.
“That already indicates a very serious communications problem in terms of information and coordination of public information at a moment as terrible as the crisis caused by the Aug. 10 earthquake,” Duque said. “It’s something serious and, I would say, a very early warning of what could happen under this government.”
This text was translated with the assistance of AI and reviewed by Jorge Valencia
