Venezuela quake toll tops 900, search intensifies for hundreds trapped

LA GUAIRA/CARACAS - Desperate Venezuelans and rescue teams raced to find survivors on June 26 as the death toll from twin earthquakes rose above 900 with foreign rescue teams and aid only beginning to reach devastated areas nearly two days after the quakes.

The government said 172 people remained trapped, 920 were dead and 3,360 injured while a website listed more than 50,000 people reported missing.

Frustration mounted over scarce equipment and uneven state support for the rescue effort after the magnitude 7.2 and 7.5 quakes devastated parts of Caracas and surrounding areas on the evening of June 24.

A UN report estimated direct damage at about US$6.7 billion (S$8.6 billion) while reinsurance broker Guy Carpenter said the gap between economic and insured losses was likely to be “quite large”.

Moron, a town near the epicenter, was still without electricity, the local fire chief told Reuters.

People remove rubble from a damaged house after two strong earthquakes, in Moron, Venezuela, on June 25. PHOTO: REUTERS

Reuters witnesses traveled along highways cracked by the quakes and passed dozens of buildings reduced to broken concrete and twisted metal. Some ruins were spray-painted with building names to help rescuers identify locations.

Traffic clogged roads into hard-hit La Guaira state as government and private vehicles, including pickups carrying soldiers, streamed in. The quakes destroyed at least 100 buildings there, including high-rise apartment blocks.

In a telephone call broadcast on state television, interim President Delcy Rodriguez said the government would restrict entry to La Guaira to reduce traffic and facilitate rescue and aid operations.

Residents dug through debris with their hands, complaining of a lack of heavy equipment, as volunteers ferried supplies on motorcycles from Caracas and Valencia.

Jennifer Palacios, 25, said the quakes struck just after she briefly left her home in the city’s eight-tower Hugo Chavez housing complex, burying her 6-year-old son and five other relatives. Their fate remained unknown.

“It’s the community that has managed to get people out alive,” she said in front of the rubble. “We need them to bring cranes to move the slabs. There are still people trapped.”

Reuters witnesses saw people in Catia la Mar, a town in La Guaira, removing toilet paper, cooking oil, bread and other items from a damaged store.

Police, the national guard and other officials did not intervene in the looting, according to Reuters witnesses. National Assembly head Jorge Rodriguez had earlier urged citizens not to bring aid directly to La Guaira and instead hand it to authorities to keep roads clear.

A UN report estimated direct damage at about US$6.7 billion (S$8.6 billion). PHOTO: AFP

Rodriguez, who took power after the United States captured her predecessor in January, has pledged a major relief deployment and was shown on state television visiting La Guaira on June 25.

The president thanked motorcycle caravans delivering supplies and said the government had distributed 2,600 tons of food.

Yet help remained uneven, with government emergency crews visible in some places but absent or barely present in others.

Lawyer Ricardo Trias, 73, was trying to obtain a death certificate for his godson Armando Lopez, 54, whose body was pulled from the rubble of his building in the town of Caraballeda on June 24 night and remained at the site.

“We want them to give us the body ... we can’t take it and here it will rot,” Trias said. “No forensic authority has come.”

The disaster could carry political consequences for Rodriguez, who has tried to present herself as an agent of change even though she served as vice president to ousted leader Nicolas Maduro.

Venezuela’s oil production was not affected by the quakes and remained at 1.2 million barrels per day, Oil Minister Paula Henao said in a radio interview on June 25, adding that fuel distribution would be guaranteed.

Oil executives and workers said the sector had avoided major infrastructure damage, though power outages and port delays were expected to curb output.

Foreign rescue teams – including some from countries long at odds with Venezuela – began arriving late on June 25 and into June 26. A small contingent from the Dominican Republic was the first to reach La Guaira.

Rodriguez said authorities met with representatives of the US military’s Northern Command and disaster experts. She thanked them for their support and said rescuers from Germany, the Netherlands and Italy were also on their way.

The US said it was mobilising US$150 million in aid and easing sanctions while the US military dispatched two ships and said helicopters and aircraft would support rescue efforts.

In Los Corales, 50 members of El Salvador’s rescue team were assessing the ruins of three 10-story buildings using drones, heat scanners and dogs to locate survivors.

“People have told us they can hear people. They call them on the phone and they answer, and they can hear people screaming and calling,” said Roberto Gavidia, the head of the team.

Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele shared a video on X of the team preparing to enter one building, saying they had discovered a 15-year-old trapped with her pet on the ninth floor and were working to free them.

The quakes struck a nation already weakened by decades of economic and political turmoil that has impoverished residents, driven millions abroad and weakened infrastructure.

“My building is uninhabitable and now I have nothing. It’s just me and my son, and I have no family in the country,” said Suhayl Sarquiz, 50, who lost her job a few months ago. The US Geological Survey estimated more than 10,000 deaths were possible, which would make the disaster one of Latin America’s deadliest earthquakes of the last century.

Nearly 7 million people could be affected, the UN’s migration agency said, as it supplied emergency shelter and other relief items. REUTERS