‘Race against time’: The desperate search for Venezuelan earthquake survivors
CARACAS, Venezuela — Rescue workers and civilians scrambled to pull survivors from the rubble on Thursday as Venezuela struggled to recover from a pair of earthquakes that collapsed scores of buildings, killed at least 188 people and left thousands homeless and sparked widespread panic.
The death toll is certain to rise, with authorities reporting more than 200 people trapped under the rubble and at least 157 missing.
While many Venezuelans sifted through the rubble to find loved ones, others turned to social media to find relatives and friends lost in the disaster.
“We know nothing about what happened to him and we are desperate,” Denise Casique wrote on Facebook to find her missing friend. “If you have seen him, please send information.”
The main airport serving the capital Caracas was closed after sustaining heavy damage, delaying the entry of aid teams from the United States, Mexico and other countries that had pledged aid.
“We are racing against time to save people trapped under the rubble,” National Assembly President Jorge Rodríguez said in his message to the nation.
The twin earthquakes of magnitude 7.2 and 7.5 struck shortly after 6pm on Wednesday, causing widespread power outages and disrupting gas supplies. Many buildings were damaged and many lives were lost in Caracas, where approximately 3 million people live.
Television and social media were filled with scenes of buildings toppled and damaged, including apartment blocks shaking as desperate residents camped in the streets.
The hardest hit appears to be La Guaira, the northern coastal province along the Caribbean about 20 miles north of Caracas. It’s a popular seaside getaway for residents of the bustling capital.
The earthquakes occurred at a time when large numbers of people were celebrating the annual holiday celebrating the birth of St. John the Baptist in the streets and restaurants and cafes on the beach in La Guaira. The party went dark after the tremors.
“Everyone is doing what they can here, but no special help has arrived,” said Jose Pirela, a 30-year-old fisherman in La Guaira who was among many people who joined makeshift rescue teams digging through the rubble of collapsed buildings. “All we can do is remove stones and rubble with our hands. We need help. People are very scared.”
Many people still seemed in shock. Thousands of people slept on the streets in the hardest-hit areas.
“The earth trembled, the street stood up,” recalled Arturo Rivero, who went to La Guaira with his family to enjoy the beach. “It was terrible. … Once the shaking stopped we started to see the destruction – collapsed buildings, people in hysterics, screaming. Massive destruction along the beach street, people trying to help people trapped in buildings.”
The United States is deploying search and rescue teams from Los Angeles and Fairfax County, Virginia, to Venezuela to assist in rescue efforts, Secretary of State Marco Rubio told reporters in Bahrain.
Rubio said that the US Department of Defense will be tasked with distributing assets to the country due to the severe damage to the airport.
“We’re also helping them with some of the overhead imagery, especially in coastal areas where they don’t have full visibility of what the damage or impact is,” he said.
Rubio said he will know how the United States can help Venezuela’s long-term recovery in the next 48 hours when there will be a better understanding of the extent of damage to the country’s infrastructure.
According to the US Geological Survey, the first earthquake with a magnitude of 7.2 occurred at 18:04 local time, with the epicenter halfway between San Felipe, the capital of Yaracuy province, and the coastal town of Morón. The second, with a magnitude of 7.5, hit 39 seconds later, about 6 kilometers east of the epicenter.
The second earthquake produced almost three times more shaking energy than the first; The fault ruptured more than 160 kilometers to the east, sending earthquake energy directly to the international airport and the hard-hit city of La Guaira.
The earthquakes, believed to be the strongest to hit Venezuela in more than a century, represent another formidable challenge for the Washington-backed government of interim President Delcy Rodriguez. He took office this year after US forces entered the capital in a pre-dawn raid on January 3 and arrested his predecessor, Nicolás Maduro.
Maduro and his wife flew to New York to face drug trafficking charges, but they denied the allegations. Their forced departure and Rodríguez’s rise transformed Venezuela from a rival of the United States to a country whose leadership now works closely with the Trump administration.
Many Venezuelans expressed disappointment that the expected economic improvements following US intervention did not materialize.
Oil-rich Venezuela, with a population of 28 million and long among the richest countries in Latin America, has faced a decade of economic decline and mass migration.
U.S. officials have blamed the corrupt and incompetent leadership of leftist Maduro and his predecessor Hugo Chavez, both long-time enemies of the United States. Before his arrest, Maduro and his supporters blamed the country’s economic freefall on punishing U.S. sanctions that were shrinking the economy.
Special correspondent Mogollón reported from Caracas and Times staff writer McDonnell reported from Mexico City. Times staff writers Rong-Gong Lin II in San Francisco and Ana Ceballos in Washington and special correspondent Cecilia Sánchez Vidal in Mexico City contributed to this report.
