Ana María Saavedra’s cousin confirmed on Instagram that the last missing triplet sister was found dead.
Ana María, 23, was the first-born of the triplets and the only one pulled alive from the rubble of the María Alvira building in Cali after Monday’s 7.4-magnitude earthquake. Her sisters Sofía and Isabella, also 23, both perished in the collapse, as did her parents Jairo Saavedra and Victoria Caicedo and her uncle Diego Caicedo. The family member who spoke out, Diana March Espinosa, is Ana María’s cousin and had been updating relatives and the public throughout the multi-day search.
Carlos Saavedra, the girls’ uncle, had told Semana news magazine earlier in the week that Ana María was found beneath a door shortly after the four-story building came down. “The door protected her from the debris,” he said. Saavedra revealed that Sofía, the second-born triplet, was recovered from the rubble four hours after Ana María was rescued. For days, the family clung to hope that Isabella — Saavedra’s goddaughter — would be found alive.
“With our hearts completely broken, we want to report that Isabella, the triplet who was still missing, was found dead,” March Espinosa wrote on her Instagram account. “Until the very last moment, we held on to the hope of finding her alive. Today, that hope has turned into a pain that is impossible to explain.”
In an interview with Blu Radio, Carlos Saavedra reconstructed the family’s final moments before the earthquake struck. He said Ana María told relatives that her father was showering, her mother was waiting in their room for her turn, and her uncle Diego was waiting for Jairo to finish a work task for a US-based company. The two sisters who died were already heading down the stairs.
“So, what Ana María says is that the two triplets who died were ahead of her, already going down the stairs, and when the earthquake hit, Ana María was coming out, and the apartment door, made of very fine cedar, fell on top of her,” Saavedra said.
“It shielded her from the rubble, and she was crushed, but with her head sticking out. Then she started screaming, and the neighbors came out within five minutes. Because the building tilted forward, she fell onto the sidewalk, into the street. Then the neighbors managed to hear her and removed her.”
Ana María was rushed to an area clinic and underwent surgery for a pelvic fracture on Wednesday. As she was being prepped for the operation, she told the anesthesiologist, “Doctor, I need to live because God has great things in store for me,” her cousin March Espinosa told Telemundo. Ana María was notified Thursday that her siblings, parents and uncle had all died.
“The truth is that Ana María … she was the lucky one” Carlos said. “There were no other survivors in the building – only Ana María.”
In the viral moment that first drew global attention to the family, rescue workers pulled the triplet sisters from the rubble in the same order they were born — Ana María first, then Sofía, then the search for Isabella — but only one survived. The María Alvira building collapse became one of the most closely followed tragedies in a disaster that has killed hundreds across western Colombia.
An update provided Saturday by Colombia’s National Unit for Disaster Risk Management showed at least 294 people confirmed dead and 3,935 injured, with at least 320 still missing. The quake, the strongest to hit Colombia in a decade, caused more than 172 buildings to collapse entirely and damaged thousands of homes.
President Abelardo de la Espriella, sworn in just days before the disaster, declared a national emergency and three days of mourning, vowing to “emerge again as a country and as a society.”
Search and recovery operations continue in Cali’s hardest-hit neighborhoods as the city buries its dead and Ana María faces recovery alone.