LA GUAIRA: Rescue teams in Venezuela pulled a 43-year-old man alive from the wreckage of a collapsed building on Thursday, eight days after twin earthquakes struck the country, as the official death toll climbed to nearly 2,300.
Security guard Hernan Gil was rescued from the remains of a seven-storey building in the coastal city of Catia La Mar following a painstaking operation involving international rescue teams. His survival after more than a week trapped beneath the debris was hailed as extraordinary by rescuers and relatives.
“This is truly a miracle,” Gil’s wife Gusbimar Gonzalez told AFP before his rescue.
“I’m completely amazed because it’s the first time I’ve seen so many countries come together like this to save a single person,” she said.
Rescue personnel from Venezuela, Chile, the United States, Portugal, Costa Rica, El Salvador and Mexico spent three days working continuously to reach Gil while carefully avoiding further structural collapse.
“It wasn’t easy to reach the exact spot where the victim was located,” Cristian Vera, head of the Chilean rescue team, told AFP.
Although a handful of survivors have been found in recent days, including a three-year-old boy rescued six days after the disaster, hopes of locating more people alive continue to fade.
Across the worst-affected areas of La Guaira, many collapsed buildings have been marked with the letter “D” to indicate they have been searched and no survivors were found.
“Time isn’t wasted in a place where there is no expectation of recovering people alive,” said Javier Rodes, coordinator of a Spanish rescue team whose search dog, Nala, failed to detect signs of life beneath the rubble.
According to National Assembly President Jorge Rodriguez, the death toll reached 2,295 on Wednesday, while more than 11,000 people were injured and nearly 13,000 residents lost their homes. Tens of thousands of people remain missing.
Interim President Delcy Rodriguez announced a seven-day national mourning period, saying the country’s “soul is torn apart by the human losses”.
The powerful magnitude 7.2 and 7.5 earthquakes that struck on June 24 devastated entire neighbourhoods in the oil-rich nation, whose infrastructure and public services had already been weakened by years of economic hardship. The disaster also comes amid a fragile political transition following the removal of Nicolas Maduro by the United States six months ago.
As rescue efforts gradually give way to relief operations, thousands of displaced families are struggling to secure food, clean water and shelter.
Reports of looting have also emerged. Authorities arrested four police officers on Wednesday after residents allegedly caught them stealing valuables from earthquake-hit buildings.
Many survivors are relying on volunteers and donations for basic necessities.
“Here, we were receiving nothing until last night when they started bringing water,” said 56-year-old Fatima Berroteran, who has been sleeping with her family in a parking area since their apartment building in La Guaira collapsed.
The World Food Programme (WFP) has appealed for $50 million to provide food assistance to around 500,000 people in Venezuela over the next three months.
Meanwhile, the World Health Organisation (WHO) warned that the country’s healthcare system is under severe strain.
“There’s an increased risk now of outbreaks of vaccine-preventable diseases” such as measles and diphtheria, due to low pre-earthquake vaccination coverage, WHO spokesperson Christian Lindmeier said.
A preliminary assessment based on NASA satellite imagery estimated that nearly 58,870 buildings may have been damaged or destroyed by the twin earthquakes.
