Colombia woman's earthquake survival story gives son a birthday to remember

PEREIRA, Colombia, Aug 12 - When Julio Cesar Largo's daughter failed to show up for her son's birthday celebration, his worst fears took hold. On the same day, a powerful earthquake had ripped through a large part of Colombia.

The 7.4-magnitude quake struck on Monday, the strongest the South American country has seen in decades. At least 250 people have been killed, with many more injured or still missing.

Largo hoped his daughter, 32-year-old Daniela, had simply been delayed on the bus ride home to Riosucio, a town in Caldas province in western Colombia. But as the hours dragged on and her phone stayed silent, dread gave way to certainty.

"I knew something had happened to her," the woman's father said. "One way or another, she would have contacted the family. And she wasn't answering her phone."

He spoke outside the collapsed budget lodging house in downtown Pereira where his daughter had been buried under debris. The building stood on the same street as the furniture store where she worked.

Largo and his wife began searching for the missing woman with a poster bearing her photograph. People who saw it told them they had seen Daniela on the morning of the earthquake.

"We came looking for her when she didn't arrive at our house, on the very day her son was turning 12," he told Reuters. "We were all supposed to go to a shopping mall in Manizales to celebrate together."

Instead, Daniela spent nearly 38 hours trapped beneath slabs of concrete after the four-story building she was in pancaked to the ground. Rescuers found her almost by accident while searching for another man who, as of Wednesday morning, was still believed to be under the rubble.

Freeing her took 10 grueling hours. Dozens of rescue specialists and around 50 volunteers worked to reach Daniela, whose arm was pinned by a metal door.

When she finally emerged alive on a stretcher and was lifted into an ambulance headed to San Jorge Hospital, the crowd around the site erupted in cheers and applause.

For her father, the moment was almost beyond words.

"It is devastating that my daughter had to go through this," he said through tears. "But the joy that she survived is overwhelming. For me, it feels like the day she was born all over again. And now she has the chance to keep raising my grandson." REUTERS