At least 164 people died e almost a thousand were injured in the two strong earthquakes on Wednesday (24) in Venezuela, which caused the collapse of dozens of buildings, electricity cuts e panic among the population.
The interim president of Venezuela, Delcy Rodríguez, reported, this Thursday (25), that the earthquakes caused at least 164 deaths and left 971 injured. In a first assessment, she had mentioned 32 deaths and more than 700 injuries.
The area most hit by the “double” earthquake was state of La Guairain the north of the country, almost 40 minutes away from the capital, Caracas, which also suffered damage.
An AFP team in this coastal region observed dozens of buildings that had collapsed or suffered serious damage. There was no electricity and people spent the night on the streets, looking for relatives among the rubble.
“We have nothing, now we have nothing, not even the strength, not even the courage to go in there, imagine,” Larry Rojas, 49, told AFP, in front of a collapsed building where his family was trapped.
The first earthquake, 7.2 degrees of magnitudehappened at 6:04 pm (7:04 pm Brasília time), with the epicenter 21 km west of Morón, in the north of the country, reported the United States Geological Survey (USGS).
Almost a minute later, a few kilometers away, the second tremor occurred, 7.5 degrees magnitude, the most powerful recorded in Venezuela since 1900, according to USGS data.
“It was terrible, it was terrible. Everything, everything collapsed, everything, everything,” said Yilsmaris Blanco, a 39-year-old resident of La Guaira.
“We thank God (…) because we are alive, but there are people who are suffering with their buried family members, with their crushed family members that they cannot remove,” he added.
The earthquakes were so powerful that were also felt in Colombiawhere some warning sirens were activated.
According to the Venezuelan interim president, 30 aftershocks were registered.
Specialized rescue teams on the way
The interim government decreed national state of emergency e declared La Guaira a “disaster zone”.
Delcy Rodríguez stated that she spoke with the UN coordinator in the country and that “specialized rescuers” are already on their way to Venezuela “to support these rescue tasks”.
She also said that her government was “displacing rescuers who are in other states of the country to concentrate efforts in the state of La Guaira and also in Greater Caracas.”
On the streets of La Guaira, the population asked for help and mobilized to try to rescue the trapped residents. The AFP team saw at least two dead.
“There are people alive there and no one comes to save them,” said a woman whose daughter was buried after the collapse of a 12-story building.
The tremors also caused serious damage to the infrastructure of Maiquetía international airport, which serves the Venezuelan capital. The air terminal was closed.
Passengers with canceled flights and residents of the region spent the night in the airport parking lot.
Caracas still has, however, the La Carlota military airport, located in the heart of the metropolitan area.
Panic in Caracas
In the capital, the scenes were undoing e panic. An AFP journalist saw a 22-story building completely destroyed in the Chacao area, east of the city.
People shouted the names of relatives in the streets and some volunteers climbed through the rubble. “We need flashlights,” one of them asked as night fell.
Outside the Sambil shopping center, also in Chacao, Heidi Romero, a 42-year-old saleswoman, was frightened by the magnitude of the tremors.
“I don’t know how long it lasted. I was on the top floor. A lot of things fell from some stores. We left through the emergency stairs, that’s where they took us out,” he told AFP.
The earthquakes were felt strongly in the states of Trujillo, Carabobo, Miranda and La Guaira, according to the Minister of the Interior, Diosdado Cabello.
Aid from the United States
The President of the United States, Donald Trumpwho has been on good terms with Venezuela since ordering the capture of then-president Nicolás Maduro in January, promised to help his “new and great friends”.
Following Trump’s orders, Secretary of State Marco Rubio announced that Washington “is immediately sending search and rescue teams, medical resources and humanitarian assistance to Venezuela.”
Rodríguez later reported that he had a telephone conversation with Rubio, “who expressed his solidarity and support for the Venezuelan people in these difficult times.”
Many Latin American countries, as well as Spain, Italy, Switzerland, China and India, also expressed solidarity and offered help.
UN experts called on Caracas to “immediately unblock” the access to social networks and to media to facilitate relief tasks.
Venezuela is frequent scenario of earthquakes. The strongest earthquakes in recent decades occurred in 1997 in Cariaco (northeast), with 73 deaths, and in 1967 in Caracas, with 236 deaths.
