Qualla: 1958 Ecuador–Colombia earthquake https://qualla.com/1958-ecuador-colombia-earthquake en-us © 2026 Bendyline Mon, 20 Jul 2026 10:21:12 GMT Qualla serial false Qualla support@bendyline.com yes https://qualla.com/_m/d/0/p/m/1958-ecuador-colombia-earthquake-wp/hero-small.webp Qualla: 1958 Ecuador–Colombia earthquake https://qualla.com/1958-ecuador-colombia-earthquake 1958 Ecuador–Colombia earthquake: Introduction https://qualla.com/1958-ecuador-colombia-earthquake/ Photo credit Grundkarte Milenioscuro, Relief Alexrk2, CC BY-SA 3.0. On Sunday morning, January 19, 1958, the clocks at the seismic station in Bogotá stopped at exactly seven minutes past nine. The earthquake that stopped them was 650 kilometres away, off the Pacific coast of Ecuador and Colombia, and its shaking would be felt from Latacunga in the Andean highlands to Pereira, Cali, and the Colombian capital itself. In the little port of Tumaco, instruments fell into the water. In Esmeraldas, a hospital collapsed and three children died in the wreckage of the pediatric ward. The magnitude was 7.6. The death toll reached at least 111 - a number that, like most in these events, hides more than it reveals.

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Image: Grundkarte Milenioscuro, Relief Alexrk2 | CC BY-SA 3.0

]]> Sat, 18 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/d/0/p/m/1958-ecuador-colombia-earthquake-wp/d0pm-1958-ecuador-colombia-earthquake-intro.mp3 0:06 1 full 1958 Ecuador–Colombia earthquake: A Quarter of a Century After 1942 https://qualla.com/1958-ecuador-colombia-earthquake/ Photo credit Mikenorton, CC BY-SA 3.0. The 1958 rupture was the second of the re-ruptures following the enormous 1906 earthquake. Where 1942 had broken a patch of plate boundary off Manabí, the 1958 event broke the next segment to the north - the coast near Esmeraldas in Ecuador and Tumaco in Colombia. Ecuador and Col...

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Image: Mikenorton | CC BY-SA 3.0

]]> Sat, 18 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/d/0/p/m/1958-ecuador-colombia-earthquake-wp/d0pm-1958-ecuador-colombia-earthquake-a-quarter-of-a-century-after-1942.mp3 0:06 2 full 1958 Ecuador–Colombia earthquake: Esmeraldas https://qualla.com/1958-ecuador-colombia-earthquake/ Photo credit Mikenorton, CC BY-SA 3.0. About thirty percent of Esmeraldas was destroyed. Water mains broke across the city. The power transmission lines were torn down. The highway from Esmeraldas up to Quito collapsed in multiple places, cutting the city off overland from the capital. The human toll was concentrated ...

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Image: Mikenorton | CC BY-SA 3.0

]]> Sat, 18 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/d/0/p/m/1958-ecuador-colombia-earthquake-wp/d0pm-1958-ecuador-colombia-earthquake-esmeraldas.mp3 0:06 3 full 1958 Ecuador–Colombia earthquake: Tumaco, in Detail https://qualla.com/1958-ecuador-colombia-earthquake/ Photo credit Mikenorton, CC BY-SA 3.0. In Colombia, the most heavily damaged town was Tumaco, on the Pacific coast just north of the Ecuadorian border. The detail in the damage reports survives partly because the town had a tide gauge and a handful of scientific instruments - which meant observers were there to write ...

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Image: Mikenorton | CC BY-SA 3.0

]]> Sat, 18 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/d/0/p/m/1958-ecuador-colombia-earthquake-wp/d0pm-1958-ecuador-colombia-earthquake-tumaco-in-detail.mp3 0:06 4 full 1958 Ecuador–Colombia earthquake: The Tsunami https://qualla.com/1958-ecuador-colombia-earthquake/ Photo credit Mikenorton, CC BY-SA 3.0. Submarine displacement along the rupture launched a tsunami. It was not the catastrophic wave of 1906, but it was enough to do harm. At Esmeraldas, a launch in the harbor nearly sank; four customs officers drowned. The waves reached Tumaco and made it as far south as Guayaquil. S...

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Image: Mikenorton | CC BY-SA 3.0

]]> Sat, 18 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/d/0/p/m/1958-ecuador-colombia-earthquake-wp/d0pm-1958-ecuador-colombia-earthquake-the-tsunami.mp3 0:06 5 full 1958 Ecuador–Colombia earthquake: Aftershocks and the Slow Return https://qualla.com/1958-ecuador-colombia-earthquake/ Photo credit Mikenorton, CC BY-SA 3.0. Many aftershocks rattled the epicentral zone in the following weeks. The two strongest came on the same morning as the main shock, at 9:45, and again on February 1. Geodetic measurements later showed the breakwater at Tumaco had risen by about 1 centimetre - a tiny, concrete meas...

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]]> Sat, 18 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/d/0/p/m/1958-ecuador-colombia-earthquake-wp/d0pm-1958-ecuador-colombia-earthquake-aftershocks-and-the-slow-return.mp3 0:06 6 full