Human toll

Colombia earthquake: AFP aggregate revised to 216 deaths

Updated August 12, 2026 at 3:36 a.m. Colombia time

An AFP aggregate of local tolls moved from 241 to 216 deaths after Cali authorities revised their count, TF1 Info with AFP reported. The article was published at 2:42 a.m. Colombia time on August 12. The source places the local revision on Tuesday evening but gives no exact time. The figure of 216 replaces neither the presidential national toll of 181 deaths nor Reuters’ aggregate of 254.

A revision reported on Tuesday evening

AFP had totalled 241 deaths from figures supplied by different local authorities. According to TF1 Info with AFP, that aggregate moved to 216 after Cali revised its own count on Tuesday evening. The source does not publish the exact time of the revision.

The first precise time available is therefore TF1 Info’s publication at 2:42 a.m. on August 12. In the timeline, the publication appears at 2:30 a.m.

Cali counted 95 and then 74 deaths in separate reports

Asocapitales Report 14, with a 4:00 p.m. cutoff on August 11, recorded 188 deaths across five capitals, including 95 in Cali and 79 in Pereira. Cali’s Municipal Report 4, with a 7:30 p.m. cutoff, later stated 74 deaths in the city.

The 21-death gap between those local snapshots remains without a published official explanation. The available documents do not say how categories, possible duplicates or individual checks were handled, and the gap is not enough to reconstruct AFP’s complete calculation.

Four benchmarks with different scopes

The latest national toll presented by President Abelardo remains 181 deaths, 2,595 injured and 195 missing. Medicina Legal later said it had received 180 bodies and identified 93 by its August 11 cutoff at 6:50 p.m. That forensic record measures another stage of institutional work.

Reuters, meanwhile, retains a 254-death aggregate drawn from Tuesday-morning local reports, including 101 in Pereira and 95 in Cali. The figures 181, 180, 216 and 254 have different sources, times and definitions: they are neither added together nor substituted for one another.

A lower aggregate does not erase deaths

The move from 241 to 216 describes a correction to a media aggregate following a local revision. It does not establish that the real number of victims declined or that 216 is now a consolidated national total.

The next useful benchmarks are a new national toll, a forensic update and municipal reports carrying their cutoff times. Until they are published, each total must remain tied to its scope and reference time.