One week after the double earthquake, Venezuela is still searchingtry to find survivors, among the rubble, those who remain; Families try to know where a loved one is, which morgue keeps their body, and, above all, they look for words that help them get through. the disaster that looms after the disaster tectonic. A week ago, talk about the “reconstruction” of the country after years of “collapse” It was limited to issues of political jargon: the human and material dimension has entered. How is what was lost rebuilt? The latest report from the Government reports that they died 2,295 people and 11,267 injured. The pace of the update is not related to extra-governmental deductions. The 10,000 body bags that the State and the UN agreed to acquire are installed amid the rancid smell of decomposed bodies that only dogs can tolerate, another average figure, close to the thousands of people who remain missing since June 24 when the clock struck 6:04. The Government prefers to highlight that 6,460 men, women and children have been rescued.
Almost 600 replicas have been verified since that moment. Each movement relives the possibility of a new collapse in the open. Until then, Venezuela’s seismic culture was low intensity. The memory of past misfortunes was always statistical. At 6:04 that Wednesday, while the sun was setting and many were preparing to enjoy the holiday and the revelry, at the moment the tremors began and the buildings shook, no one knew quite what to do or where to go.
Collapsed building in Caraballeda, La Guaira. / MIGUEL MEDINA / AFP
The “president in charge” Delcy Rodríguez has ceased to be a simple administrator of the transition supervised by the United States. The double earthquake has forced her to face extreme circumstances. The limits of response of a State that accumulated enormous previous deficiencies were laid bare. On Tuesday afternoon, Rodríguez flew over what remains of La Guaria, “ground zero.” From the heights he could see the extent of the destruction. The most popular resort in Venezuela looks in the mirror of destruction typical of a war. A Gaza of the Caribbean, 30 kilometers from Caracas. Partly razed, although without bombs or the machines of an enemy Army. The map of La Guaira will be different from now on. When the last bodies are removed and the rubble is removed, it will display the indelible scars. Also part of the capital.
The authorities assure that 28,380 people are affected and sheltered in hospitals and temporary camps. The number is also questioned by volunteers and specialists. The face of Caracas has been transfigured and in some of its parishes it appears unrecognizable. Hundreds of victims who must sleep in their squares, streets and parks They were surprised by heavy rain. The collection centers cannot cope. They receive donations of non-perishable food, medicines, clothing, mattresses and hygiene items. The solidarity It is the norm in a society raised in the culture of political division.
Damages and resources
“We already have a classification of those who lost their homes and must be attended to immediately in these transitional camps. Likewise, the Ministry of Housing and Habitat is developing projects for the construction of homes in the shortest possible time. There will be thousands of solutions before the end of this year“, promised the “president in charge.” The question about the Government’s operational and economic response capacity to make such an announcement a reality does not offer encouraging answers. Post-Maturism inherits a State with serious problems that became visible in the situation of the hospitals. The collapse has been attributed to the US sanctions, which are suspended for three months, as if in that period a normality that did not exist before was recovered.
Improvised camp for victims of the earthquake, this Wednesday in La Guaira. / FEDERICO PARRA / AFP
UN experts have estimated that the direct physical damage from the earthquake is close to $6.7 billion. which is equivalent to approximately 6% of GDP. The oil revenue that the United States now administers is not enough to begin repairs in a country that has just begun to reintegrate into the international credit market and that has an external debt close to 240,000 dollars. The Government hopes that the disaster will at least allow for the recovery of enormous funds that were frozen abroad while Nicolas Maduro He was in charge of the Executive Branch. They are being held at the Bank of England. 31 tons of Venezuelan gold, equivalent to about 4,000 million dollars. Hundreds of millions from the state oil company PDVSA have been tied up in Switzerland. The Novo Banco de Portugal maintains another 1.5 billion dollars. That mass of assets could help “reconstruction.” The eventual recovery of this liquidity opens up another question about administrative efficiency. The years of indulgent squandering of profits from crude oil exports They are an inevitable reference. Most of the Madurismo PDVSA directors have been accused of corruption.
La Guaira summarizes some of the deficiencies that explain what happened. Francisco Lermanda reached “ground zero” at the head of Los Topos, a group specialized in urban search and rescue in Chile. According to Lermanda, many of the buildings fell like cards due to serious structural failures. Some did not comply with the anti-seismic standards current and their materials were deficient; others lacked maintenance. “We have seen buildings that completely collapsed and others that were left standing. The difference is in how they were built and maintained. In areas like La Guaira, several did not have adequate resistance for an earthquake of this magnitude.” In the face of tremors of the intensity experienced, buildings should have a specific quality of concrete and reinforcing steel, beams and columns correctly placed. “When a structure does not have good ductility (ability to deform without breaking), in the event of a strong movement it simply collapses suddenly.” And that happened with old buildings and some of those built by the Housing Mission.
View of a beach hotel in Caraballeda, La Guaira, badly affected by the earthquake. / JUAN BARRETO / AFP
The role of the US
The double earthquake is not only an enormous challenge for the “Rodrigato” but also for the Donald Trump Administration, which has supported it since last January 3, considering it a guarantor of the bilateral economic agreements that favor Washington. The US has sent specialized urban search and rescue teams. The State Department has committed a relief fund 150 million dollars. Military teams and specialized personnel actually manage the control tower and runway areas of the Simón Bolívar international airport in Maiquetía. A whole delegation of responsibilities. The Government expects much more from its new “partners” and “friends”, in the words used by Rodríguez when thanking the North American Administration for the immediate reaction to the disaster.
Political disputes have remained in the background, overshadowed by the emergency. María Corina Machado’s manifest desire to return to the country, frustrated, according to the opposition leader, by the Government, was barely a footnote to the tragedy, but she warned Rodríguez that a front of dispute could open among the ruins. On January 3, after the US military operation that kidnapped Maduro, it was said that Venezuela It was no longer the same. The sentence is repeated with another emphasis against the landscape of devastation. For now, the country joins the list of Latin American telluric tragedies of the 20th and 21st centuries. The preliminary data do not accept a comparison with what happened in Peru in 1970, when a magnitude 7.9 earthquake caused 66,794 deaths, nor the 27,000 and 30,000 deaths from the earthquakes in Guatemala and Chile, in 1976 and 1939, respectively. In Haiti, 316,000 people lost their lives in the 2010 earthquake, with a magnitude of 7.0. The catastrophe was especially felt in Port-au-Prince, which lacked anti-seismic buildings and the basic structure to respond to the emergency. About 1.5 million people lived in makeshift camps for years. Cholera also claimed thousands of lives. The GDP fell seven points and the State never recovered. Venezuela is not Haiti, due to history, economy, territorial dimensions, human resources. Any analogy, the most distant and extemporaneous, is scary.
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