Foreign Relations

IDF Delegation Commander Says Colombia Search Phase Will End Within Two Days

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Courtroom-sketch editorial illustration of four Israeli search-and-rescue soldiers in olive uniforms, tactical vests and yellow helmets standing in the foreground, one with his arm outstretched pointing toward a pancaked multi-storey concrete building of earthquake rubble behind them, a white house and a yellow hose in the background.

Brig. Gen. (Res.) Yossi Pinto, commander of the IDF National Search and Rescue Unit and head of Israel's 80-member Brit Re'im delegation in Colombia, told reporters on Monday that the chances of finding people trapped alive are falling. He estimated that locating and rescuing the missing will be exhausted within two days, after which Colombian authorities will shift toward rehabilitation. Pinto said hundreds of buildings in Cali were damaged and that five sites of heavy destruction still hold trapped or missing people, with the Israeli team at three of them. The magnitude 7.4 quake killed nearly 300 people in western Colombia; at least 140 remain missing.

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