An unimaginable human tragedy is unfolding in the aftermath of the 7.2 and 7.5 Richter, with the UN warning of , emergency dispatch of 10,000 body bags and the missing reaching 50,000.
😨 | Records of security cameras that captured the moment of the earthquake in Venezuela continue to appear 🇻🇪🎥
— Barquisimeto News (@NoticiasBqto)
From US detention centers to absolute nightmare
Just hours after the deportation flight from Miami landed, carrying 146 Venezuelans (among them 19 women and 7 children), the double whammy leveled the coastal state of La Huaira. The authorities had taken the deportees to the seaside hotel Hotel Santuario La Llanada for medical examinations and issuance of documents, with the promise that they would return to their homes the next day.
A satellite image shows the damaged Hotel Santuario La Llanada after the eartquakes that hit the country in Macuto, Venezuela, June 29, 2026. Vantor/Handout via REUTERS
“I was born again, God gave me a second chance,” sobbed 58-year-old Lisbeth Portillo, who was in a room on the second floor. “I heard a deafening noise and saw the women next to me fall. They were screaming for help. Immediately after came the second earthquake. I was crushed by a beam, but the next tremor moved the debris and I was able to get out.”
Portillo, who had lived in Florida for four years, was among about 20 survivors who began walking naked and barefoot through the streets of La Guira in search of help in a town that had been reduced to rubble.
“His legs were amputated” – Shocking testimonies
A rescuer works at the site of a collapsed building in the aftermath of earthquakes in La Guaira, Venezuela, June 29, 2026. REUTERS/Gaby Oraa TPX IMAGES OF THE DAY
The families’ anger is overflowing as they accuse the domestic intelligence agency (SEBIN) of confiscating the migrants’ phones and IDs before the earthquake, making it difficult to trace and identify them.
22-year-old Anderson Daniel Salcedo, a construction worker and avid soccer fan, lived in the US for three years, sending money to his mother. He was deported last Wednesday and remained trapped in a hole in the ruins of the hotel for a full 40 hours.
Salcedo was pulled out alive, but with injuries that changed his life forever. “His mother went straight to the University Hospital of Caracas and there she found him, but both of his legs had already been amputated due to the sheer weight of the debris,” his grandmother, Marlene Lozano, told Reuters. The young man is now intubated.
Members of the French 7th Civil Security Training and Intervention Regiment make a recognition in a damaged building in Catia La Mar, La Guaira state, Venezuela, on June 29, 2026. Hopes were fading on June 29, 2026 of finding survivors more than four days after powerful twin earthquakes struck Venezuela, as residents grow increasingly frustrated with the government’s response to the disaster that has killed at least 1,450 people and left tens of thousands unaccounted for. MIGUEL MEDINA/Pool via REUTERS
At the same time, Oswandeliz Núñez, a lawyer and engineer, is desperately searching for her 28-year-old son, Daniel. “He called me when they landed. If they had let him come home right away, he would be alive. They didn’t commit any crime, they were already in their homeland.”
Humanitarian crisis: 10,000 dead and 50,000 missing
The scale of the disaster exceeds any precedent for the country in the last century. According to the official provisional count, the dead amount to at least 1,719, the injured exceed 5,000, while more than 2,500 buildings have been completely destroyed.
🇻🇪 NASA Data: 58,870 Buildings DAMAGED in Venezuela Earthquakes
NASA researchers used Sentinel-1 imagery from the European Space Agency’s satellite radar to map the destruction across central and northern Venezuela.
NASA’s estimate is nearly 70 TIMES higher than what Venezuela…
— Ryan Rozbiani (@RyanRozbiani)
The UN Humanitarian Coordinator in Venezuela, Gianluca Rambola Del Tindaro, said:
“The level of destruction is profound. Entire neighborhoods have been leveled. Although the critical window for the rescue has passed, teams are working non-stop.”
Fearing a rapid increase in casualties in the coming days, the UN has launched the shipment of 10,000 body bags. At the same time, the country’s opposition talks about a list of about 45,000 to 50,000 missing persons. In the cemeteries of Caracas, cremations are now carried out on a 24-hour basis.
International mobilization and geopolitical background
Volunteers gather near heavy equipment beside the rubble of a building destroyed by earthquakes in Catia La Mar, La Guaira State, Venezuela, June 29, 2026. MIGUEL MEDINA/Pool via REUTERS
In the field of investigations, more than 2,200 rescuers from 27 countries are working, with the help of 160 specially trained dogs.
Venezuela Earthquake Devastation
Collapsed buildings & total ruin after 7.2 & 7.5 quakes struck.
Death toll: 1,430+ (thousands missing). Heartbreaking.Pray for Venezuela 🇻🇪 🙏🏻
— TaraBull (@TaraBull)
At the same time, the US has begun a massive military mobilization. The amphibious transport ship USS Lauderdale is anchored off La Guaira while 130 US Marines managed to reopen the town’s port so humanitarian aid could arrive by sea.
Donald Trump’s administration has announced a doubling of economic aid to $300 million. It is noted that Washington and Caracas recently restored relations after the January military operation that led to the capture of Nicolas Maduro, with the US now supporting interim president Delsy Rodriguez.
The economic damage from the earthquake is already estimated by the UN at 7 billion dollars, an amount that corresponds to 6% of the GDP of a country already plagued for years by a deep economic and political crisis.
With information from Associated Press, Reuters, Agence France-Presse
