Rescuers are losing hope of finding more survivors from last week’s twin earthquakes after hours of grueling work searching under the rubble of collapsed buildings, with those affected now facing the possibility of disease spreading from the disaster.
Rescue crews from Ecuador and the US halted their operations early today in Macuto, a town in La Guaira state — the area hardest hit by the June 24 earthquakes — after more than 40 hours of work when they stopped getting answers from a mother and her three children trapped under a nine-story building.
“Ultimately, we believe that the days have already passed and that what we will find now is death,” said Maj. Jorge Montanero, head of the EQ11 team from Guayaquil, on Ecuador’s Pacific coast.
“Unfortunately, things have not turned out favourably,” he said as he stood amid rubble having made his way between four slabs of concrete in an effort to locate the four trapped victims.
The extent of the destruction is enormous
About 59,000 buildings have been damaged or destroyed by the earthquakes – which occurred seconds apart and measured 7.2 and 7.4 on June 24 – according to NASA calculations. The extent of the destruction can be seen from Space.
Not all collapsed buildings had professional rescue crews at the scene, with relatives and neighbors scrambling to clear rubble to retrieve survivors or bodies, according to survivors and residents from various areas.
“There is no doubt that we are dealing with a larger number than has already been reported. I can give an estimate: we are supplying – and this has been agreed with the local authorities – 10,000 body bags,” said Gianluca Rambola, the UN coordinator in Venezuela, from his office in the Venezuelan capital, Caracas.
The government of interim President Delsy Rodriguez says at least 1,750 people have died and thousands more have been injured as a result of the quakes. About 16,000 people have been left homeless. A website promoted by the country’s opposition puts the number of missing at around 43,000.
Bell from WHO for outbreak of epidemics
In this context, the warning from the World Health Organization (WHO), which announced that it fears outbreaks of diseases in Venezuela after the double earthquake that hit the country a week ago, is of particular concern, citing “insufficient” recording of the number of victims and missing persons.
“Health services are under extreme pressure with facilities operating beyond their capacity” to deal with the influx of wounded, WHO spokesman Christian Lindmeier told a news conference in Geneva.
The official death toll from the twin earthquakes, which is still very tentative, has reached 1,719, with 5,034 injured, according to National Assembly President Jorge Rodríguez.
The UN, for its part, reports that around 50,000 people are still missing.
Lindmeier warned that “there is an increased risk of disease outbreaks.”
Problems in health services, water and sanitation networks, combined with population displacement, could fuel outbreaks of vaccine-preventable diseases such as measles, diphtheria and whooping cough.
They could also accelerate the spread of vector-borne diseases such as mosquitoes and water, including yellow fever, dengue, chikungunya, Zika, herpes and malaria, he said. “The country’s interim president (Delcy Rodriguez) reported that 38 hospitals have been affected,” Lindmeier said.
By June 27, WHO had managed to collect reports on the situation from 21 health facilities in Caracas, La Guaira, Miranda and Falcon. Of these, three are in critical condition, six have structural damage or are only partially functional, while the others remain functional but under significant limitations, the WHO representative explained.
He said initial assessments pointed to problems in patient service delivery, characterized by overcrowding in facilities, long waiting lists for surgery (particularly in trauma orthopedics and neurosurgery), biosecurity deficiencies and extremely high stress on staff.
