Pereira, Aug. 10 -- At least 18 people have been killed in Pereira, a city in western Colombia, after a powerful 7.4-magnitude earthquake struck the country on Monday, according to The New York Times.

The US Geological Survey (USGS) recorded the quake at around 7:34 am local time with epicentre near San Jose del Palmar in Colombia's Choco area, around 280 kilometres west of Bogota, at a depth of 107 kilometres, CNN reported.

Pereira, a city of around 500,000 people, lies less than 64 km from the epicentre, according to The New York Times.

Tremors were felt in several cities across Colombia, including the capital Bogota, where alarms sounded and people in several buildings evacuated to the streets as a precaution.

According to CNN, the...