Colombia’s new right-wing president, Abelardo de la Espriella, had barely taken office when the ground shifted beneath his feet. Three days into his presidency, a 7.4-magnitude earthquake struck western Colombia, killing more than 250 people and exposing a problem that no campaign speech can easily solve: the Colombian state does not reach all Colombians with equal force. The disaster has tested the government’s ability to mobilise rescue teams, money and machinery.

In relatively prosperous areas such as Cali and the coffee-growing regions, the response has been substantial. But in Chocó, near the epicentre and Colombia’s poorest region, people have complained of inadequate equipment, disrupted services and delayed assistance. The contrast is more than a logistical failure. It is a picture of Colombia’s deeper inequality. Chocó is not poor because an earthquake struck it. It was poor before the earthquake, with weak infrastructure, difficult terrain, armed groups and limited state presence. Its predominantly Afro-Colombian and indigenous population has long experienced the Colombian government differently from citizens in the country’s richer and better-connected regions.

That makes the........

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