The body of a groom-to-be who was less than a week away from his wedding was recovered from the rubble of a collapsed hotel building in Colombia after Monday’s devastating 7.4 magnitude earthquake.
Juan Felipe Giraldo, 24, who was set to marry the mother of his child, Natalia Patiño, on Aug. 16, went missing in the town of Pereira after the disaster ravaged cities across the South American nation, international outlet Infobae reported.
“Forever and always my heart, you were the most complete love I ever had. I love you forever,” Giraldo’s grieving fiancée wrote on her Instagram story Friday.
The couple shared a two-year-old son and lived together in the country’s capital city, Bogotá, the outlet reported.
Giraldo, an eyewear salesman, had traveled to Pereira on a work trip just hours before the deadly quake hit on Monday, and wound up staying in the doomed Hotel Dibeni in the city center.
After news of Giraldo’s disappearance broke, his father Hernán Giraldo, traveled to Pereira where he searched with rescue teams day and night to find his son.
The 24-year-old father reportedly sent his fiancée a video prior to the disaster, which helped rescuers establish Giraldo’s location after the earthquake caused his hotel to collapse, Parati reported.
“There is life, there are small signs of life, and if there is life there is hope,” Hernán said in a video during the search and rescue earlier this week.
“Son, I love you, on Sunday you are going to be getting married, and if not on Sunday, it will be in 8, 15 days, but you will be there, son,” Hernán said prior to the recovery of his son’s body.
The 7.4 magnitude quake struck the South American country in the early hours of Monday morning.
Following the disaster, 294 people have died and 3,935 more have been injured, according to the National Unit for Disaster Risk Management (UNGRD) Colombia’s report on Saturday.
Over 300 people remain missing as of Saturday.
