Yimvert Berroterán, 18, player for the Venezuela under-20 team, was found dead under the rubble of the earthquakes that devastated the country last Wednesday (24). His girlfriend, Valentina Sandoval, was with him and also died amid the landslides in La Guaira, the region most affected by the earthquakes. The bodies were removed two days after the earthquakes.
The Venezuelan Football Federation mourned Berroterán’s death in a social media post on Friday (26). “Venezuelan football says goodbye with immense pain to a young man who represented the colors of our country with pride, commitment and love”, says the text.
Berroterán was considered one of the great promises of Venezuelan football and played for the team in last year’s U17 World Cup. He had traveled to La Guaira to spend the holiday on the region’s beaches and was staying in a holiday apartment with his girlfriend.
The wife and two young children of Argentine football player Lucas Trejo also died in the earthquakes, his team, Club Sport Marítimo La Guaira, reported on Sunday (28).
Trejo, who plays for the Venezuelan second division team, shared a video on social media in which he searched for his wife, Yanina, and his children, Aarón and Ainhoa, in the rubble for three days.
“Club Sport Marítimo La Guaira deeply regrets the irreparable loss of the wife and children of our player Lucas Trejo,” the team said in an Instagram post, accompanied by a photo of the family.
Trejo, 38, was at a team training center in Caracas when the earthquakes, measuring 7.2 and 7.5, hit the region on Wednesday night, according to CNN.
He immediately returned to his home in La Guaira, the state hardest hit by the disaster, and found “a horrible scene”, Ricardo Ardiles, Trejo’s brother-in-law, told the channel. “He found absolutely nothing of what the building was,” he said.
As shown by Sheeta player from Marítimo de La Guaira, a second division team in Venezuela, also drew international attention after sharing with followers the family tragedy he is going through following the strongest earthquake in the country in more than a century.
Hector Bello often shared photos of his workouts and his family on social media. On Thursday (25), he published an image of his wife, Andrea, who died during the earthquake that hit several cities in Venezuela, including the capital, Caracas, and La Guaira, where he lived.
“You will always be our favorite hero, baby. I will make sure our daughter remembers how wonderful you were, how much you loved her,” he said on his Instagram account.
“I will tell her the story of how you saved her, of how you gave your own life for our daughter, of how you were a brave woman who, even in her last breaths, never abandoned her.”
According to the local press, she had protected her daughter with her own body after the building they lived in collapsed.
The earthquakes killed more than 1,700 people, and approximately 50,000 others are missing.
