Screams echo as Venezuela searches for survivors after quakes

CARACAS – Screams and groans echoed from beneath piles of concrete and bricks during the early morning hours of June 25 as residents searched for survivors in the coastal city of Catia La Mar, where rescue teams had yet to reach several collapsed buildings nearly 10 hours after twin earthquakes struck Venezuela.

Friends were still searching for information about Sahín Briceno, a 22-year-old economics student at Venezuela’s Central University, who had been spending the holiday with his family in Catia La Mar’s Belo Horizonte apartment building.

“He lived on the 10th floor, and we heard everything above the fifth floor collapsed,” Xeuxy Martinez, 30, said in an interview.

Martinez said friends had seen posts on X saying the Briceno family had been taken to a nearby school, but no one had been able to confirm that.

“None of us have been able to reach La Guaira because access is blocked and there’s no phone signal,” he said.

The coastal state of La Guaira, home to about 500,000 people and located about 30km north of Caracas, was among the areas hit the hardest by the 7.2- and 7.5-magnitude quakes that struck on the evening of June 24.

The region, which has suffered devastating natural disasters before, was especially crowded because the national holiday on June 24 drew thousands to its beaches.

Helicopter footage showed entire blocks in the Playa Grande, Tanaguarenas and Los Corales neighbourhoods overlooking Venezuela’s Caribbean coast reduced to rubble.

Buildings still standing had cracked facades, shattered windows and gaping holes in their walls.

Soccer fields were filling with makeshift camps as families pitched tents, preparing to spend another night outdoors.

Injured people lay on mats and on the ground in hospital carparks as overwhelmed medical staff used pen and paper to register incoming patients while struggling to treat a growing number of casualties.

The death toll in the state rose to 105 by on midday June 25, with 1,520 people wounded, according to figures provided to a humanitarian organisation by local authorities.

La Guaira is also home to Simon Bolivar International Airport, where videos showed passengers cowering under columns and next to suitcases as pieces of the roof came off.

Copa Airlines, Latam Airlines Group and Avianca cancelled their flights after the airport was closed, offering reroutes to Cucuta, a Colombian city that’s on the border with Venezuela.

Johana Manrique, a 55-year-old manicurist in Caracas, said she had been unable to reach her 35-year-old daughter, who lives in the Montesano neighbourhood near the airport, since speaking with her shortly before the earthquakes.

“I’m still shaking and nervous,” she said in a phone interview.

“My granddaughter had a nervous breakdown and went to the hospital after the quakes, but I still haven’t heard back from them. They don’t have electricity and cellphone coverage is down. I’ve texted neighbours and nothing.”

Antonella Acero, 24, was staying at Eduard’s Suite & Resort with her husband, Ramon Cabrera, a baseball player on La Guaira’s local team, and their two babies.

The family had left the hotel to get ice cream just 15 minutes before it collapsed.

“We thank God for saving our lives, but we are very sad for the people who stayed at the hotel, including some of my husband’s relatives,” Acero said.

Residents compiled lists on social media identifying more than 40 buildings they believed had collapsed, along with the names of people who may have been inside.

A volunteer-run database lists 11,278 people as still missing in La Guaira, with photos and contact information provided by relatives or volunteers.

One listing is for Fabiola Rodriguez, who is believed to be trapped beneath the rubble of the Sayemar building in Tanaguarenas, according to information posted by her husband.

The website also says 856 people have been found alive in La Guaira.

Alvaro Albornoz, a 52-year-old lawyer who fled Venezuela for Honduras more than a decade ago, said because of limited cell service and power outages, it took him hours to get in touch with his 56-year-old sister, who was rescued from her apartment as her building collapsed.

He said another friend is still waiting for news of her mother, who remains trapped under rubble nearby.

Albornoz said it is mostly residents and firefighters helping search for the missing, but locals are hoping international rescue teams arrive soon.

“Maybe Bukele, the US, France or Chile. We hope they arrive today,” he said.

After years of political and economic turmoil, Venezuela’s resources to handle the aftermath of a natural disaster remain limited.

Rescue teams are expected to begin arriving from countries including the US, Colombia, Chile, Mexico, Panama, Dominican Republic, El Salvador and Qatar.

The United Nations also said its Office for the Coordination of Human Affairs was facilitating the deployment of such teams.

Alongside firefighters and civil protection crews, residents searched through mountains of concrete and twisted steel, some armed with shovels and others with only their bare hands.

Others loaded pickup trucks with broken furniture and appliances salvaged from collapsed homes.

Residents recovering a gas cylinder from a collapsed building in Caraballeda, in Venezuela’s La Guaira state, on June 25. PHOTO: AFP

Residents queued outside pharmacies and neighbourhood grocery stores that had managed to reopen while soldiers and police guarded access to the worst-hit areas.

La Guaira is no stranger to disaster, having suffered the worst damage from December 1999 floods and mudslides that killed an estimated 30,000 to 50,000 people and caused about US$4 billion in damage.

Then President Hugo Chavez rejected a Pentagon offer to send hundreds of US combat engineers to help rebuild flood-stricken areas, saying foreign troops would not be allowed into the country.

Elisa Carmona is searching for her uncle, Carlos Enrique Machado, 63, her cousin, Kinger Correa, 45, and Correa’s 7-year-old son, Isaac, who lived in the Residencias Caribe apartment complex in Caraballeda.

Correa’s husband walked from Caracas to La Guaira after authorities closed the highway, only to find the building had completely collapsed.

“We were on the phone five minutes before the earthquake hit,” Carmona said by phone from Mexico. “There is no one there to rescue them. The building has sunk into the ground.” BLOOMBERG