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Power, Water and Sanitation for Colombia's Earthquake Response Camps
Power, Water and Sanitation for Colombia's Earthquake Response Camps
Colombia's magnitude 7.4 earthquake struck on 10 August 2026 near San José del Palmar in Chocó department. It killed 335 people, injured 4,516 and left 105 missing. Across 16 departments and 500 municipalities, 486,917 people were affected, and 36,478 homes were destroyed.
By 17 September, OCHA had also recorded damage to 402 health centres and 182 water systems. In Chocó, damaged roads left some communities reachable only by air.
That last detail is the brief. When the water system is down and the road is out, a camp's services are not backup infrastructure. They are the infrastructure.
Power
Size the load per module before you choose a generator. Lighting, sockets, heating or cooling, and water heating. Cooling and water heating usually dominate; lighting rarely does.
Ask what "electrified" actually includes. Socket circuits, distribution board, exterior connection point and earthing are four separate line items, and suppliers quote different combinations of them. Get it in writing against a drawing. This is the most common gap between what a buyer assumed and what arrived.
One main board, sub-boards per block, and a changeover for a second generator. A single generator with no changeover is a single point of failure for two hundred people.
Water
Separate potable from non-potable at design stage, not after the pipe run is in.
Storage plus pressure. A ground-level tank needs a pump; a tank on a stand needs structure. Decide which before the base is poured.
Hot water for ablution is the item most often value-engineered out, and the one most often complained about in month three.
Where municipal supply is damaged — as it is across 182 systems here — the camp's own storage is the buffer between a repair schedule and a queue.
Sanitation
Ablution blocks come off the same frame and bolt kit as the rooms. WC, shower and wash modules use the same panel system, with partitions and door positions set at drawing stage.
Decide the discharge route early: sewer connection, septic with soakaway, or holding tank with collection. Ground conditions decide this, not the supplier.
Greywater from showers is a volume problem more than a treatment problem. Plan the soakaway area before the camp is laid out, not after the first block is occupied.
The detail that decides month three
Commissioning should end with a walkthrough and a spares box: breakers, tap cartridges, door hardware, a set of bolts.
Camps that fail early usually fail on a part worth less than the call-out charge to replace it. On a site reachable only by air, that part stops the whole block.
