The residents are in despair after the powerful double that has so far claimed the lives of 920 people while 50,000 are estimated to be .
As the survivors complain, the help from the authorities is limited and this reduces the few hopes of rescuing their own people who are buried under the debris left behind by the double earthquake.
Almost 48 hours after two powerful earthquakes, rescue teams from 17 countries are arriving in the affected areas of Venezuela, where the health care system is on the verge of collapse.
The 7.2-magnitude and 7.5-magnitude earthquakes that shook Venezuela within seconds of each other on Wednesday spread death and destruction, leveling countless buildings in several areas, notably in La Huaira, a coastal city near the capital Caracas, where residents have complained of the state apparatus’s inadequate response to search and rescue operations.
The death toll from the earthquakes that hit Venezuela reached 920, the president of the parliament, Jorge Rodríguez, announced yesterday.
In Geneva, UN humanitarian chief Tom Fletcher told Agence France-Presse (AFP) that the fate of more than 50,000 people was unknown. “This is an extremely complicated rescue operation,” he noted, adding that the number of dead is expected to increase significantly.
In La Guira, many buildings have been reduced to huge piles of rubble. Residents and volunteers are making frantic efforts to locate survivors in the rubble. They put out calls for equipment to cut steel bars and move huge boulders.
Sending rescuers from 17 countries
The US announced on Friday that it would deploy a 250-member mission to the affected zone after offering $150 million and sending two warships, transport aircraft and helicopters to the area.
Rescue crews from El Salvador, Mexico, Colombia and Switzerland were among the first to arrive in Venezuela.
In front of a block of flats flattened in La Huaira, the head of a rescue team from Chile, Nadiomar Polanco, said there was “unfortunately, little hope of finding survivors”. Rescuers from his team were the first to arrive at the scene and are now focusing on searching and retrieving “people who are already dead,” he added.
