That day, the city of Cúcuta and the town of Villa del Rosario, in the Norte de Santander department (Colombia) and the municipalities of San Antonio del Táchira and Capacho, Táchira State (Venezuela) were destroyed totally by this catastrophic earthquake.
In 1899 he left school and traveled to Venezuela, where, with Eleazar López Contreras, he founded the first Public School in the town of Capacho Nuevo, the capital of the Independencia municipality (State of Táchira).