Rescuers unable to reach Colombia earthquake epicenter as more than 200 dead | CNN

Brian Osorio Zuluaga was at work when the earthquake struck Cali. He jumped on his motorcycle to rush home, but pulled over when the saw that the La Torre del Limonar five-story residential complex that had collapsed.

Osorio approached the rubble and began shouting into the wreckage. Then, he asked those around him for silence.

That was when he heard a sound — barely a whisper. “Yes, I’m here. I’m with a baby,” a man’s voice replied.

Seven other people nearby began helping him clear rubble to reach the man and the baby, but a large concrete slab was blocking their way.

“We all lifted together — one, two, three, up,” he told CNN. But the slab was too heavy to toss aside, and there could be more people trapped underneath. So several people held it aloft as others cleared a path to the baby.

Osorio held the baby, a boy, and handed him to a police officer, who took him to an ambulance. Afterward, firefighters were also able to pull out the man.

In the rubble, Osorio said he saw clothes, shoes, and a stuffed animal covered in dust. He thought about the people who might still be trapped.

“All those thoughts go through your mind,” he said. Osorio said he has not been able to get back in touch with the man who was with the baby, and he doesn’t know their condition, though he hopes both are doing well.

Osorio says the bravery of everyone who rushed to help saved the lives of both man and baby.

“No single person could have lifted that piece of rubble — it was so, so heavy,” he said.