Desperate Venezuelans and foreign rescue teams raced against time on Friday to find survivors under rubble after two earthquakes struck areas of Caracas and surrounding areas, as frustration grew over a lack of heavy equipment and the death toll approached 1,000.
Foreign rescue and aid teams began arriving almost two days after the 7.2 and 7.5 magnitude tremors hit a region about 160km west of Caracas.
The government estimates that hundreds of people are still trapped and missing in addition to the 920 confirmed deaths and 3,360 injured. Website created to receive reports of people still missing had more than 50,000 registrations as of Friday afternoon. The UN humanitarian aid chief came up with a similar figure.
The United States Geological Survey predicted a high potential for more than 10,000 deaths, which would place the double earthquake among the deadliest in Latin America in the last century.
La Guaira, a coastal town on the outskirts of Caracas, was the most affected, with at least 100 buildings, including multi-story residential buildings, completely collapsing.
Jennifer Palacios, 25, said the tremors occurred when she was briefly outside her home in the eight-tower Hugo Chávez housing complex named after Venezuela’s late socialist leader, burying her 6-year-old son and five other relatives.
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“It was the community that managed to rescue people alive,” she said, sitting on a plastic chair in front of the rubble. “We need them to bring in cranes to remove the slabs. There are still people trapped.”
Reuters witnesses walked along earthquake-cracked highways and passed dozens of buildings reduced to chunks of broken concrete and twisted metal. Some ruins were spray-painted with the names of the buildings, in an attempt to help rescuers identify the locations.
Sparse help
The government of interim President Delcy Rodríguez, who took power after the United States captured her predecessor in January, has promised a large shipment of aid. State television showed footage of her visiting La Guaira on Thursday.
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But for now, aid has been, in general, irregular this Friday, with authorities such as firefighters, police, civil defense and military on the streets in some places, but absent or with a minimal presence in others.
Lawyer Ricardo Trias, 73, was trying to obtain a death certificate for his godson, whose body was removed from the rubble of his building in the city of Caraballeda on Thursday night and remains in place, covered with a green cloth.
“We want the body to be handed over to us… we can’t take it and here it will rot,” Trias said. “No forensic authorities appeared.”
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Trias said his 33-year-old goddaughter was rescued and taken to a hospital in Caracas.
Residents sifting through the rubble with their bare hands or improvised tools denounced the lack of state help and heavy equipment, while volunteers brought supplies on motorbikes from Caracas and Valencia.
Rodríguez, according to whom the State of La Guaira would be “militarized” to facilitate rescue work, thanked the caravans of volunteers and said that the government had already distributed 2,600 tons of food.
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A Reuters team observed police and national guard motorcycle patrols on the road leading to the community of Los Corales in La Guaira, one of the hardest hit.
The disaster could have political consequences for Rodríguez, who has sought to present herself as an agent of political change despite having been vice president of ousted Nicolás Maduro.
International mobilization
Foreign rescue teams — including some from countries that have opposed Venezuela during decades of international isolation, political repression and economic deterioration — began arriving Thursday night, with a small contingent from the Dominican Republic being the first to access La Guaira.
Several countries, including India and Switzerland, sent rescue teams and supplies. Mexico, with its own experience in earthquake recovery, sent 250 rescue personnel, as well as five rescue dogs and other equipment.
More than 60 Colombians arrived this Friday, as well as more than 180 rescuers from a promised Salvadoran team of 300 people and almost 100 from Spain.
The United States announced the mobilization of US$150 million in aid and the relaxation of sanctions to facilitate relief for earthquake victims. The US Armed Forces sent two ships and reported that helicopters and aircraft will support search and rescue operations.
In Los Corales, 50 people from the El Salvador team assessed the ruins of the three 10-story buildings that made up the Coral Mar complex, using drones, thermal cameras and sniffer dogs to discover whether there were still survivors inside the buildings.
“People have told us that they can hear other people. They call them, they answer the phone and they can hear people shouting and calling,” said Dr. Roberto Gavidia, head of the team, who has also worked in Haiti and Turkey.
The team had not yet found any survivors.
The earthquake hit a nation already weakened by decades of economic and political turmoil that has impoverished its inhabitants, forced millions to emigrate and deteriorated infrastructure and basic services.
