The death toll of two earthquakes in Venezuela has climbed to 1,430, as searches for survivors intensify during the remaining hours of the window for survival.
Residents took the search for missing loved ones into their own hands, citing a scarcity of government rescuers and thousands of people remaining missing.
Aid agencies consider the first 48 to 72 hours to be the “golden window” to retrieve people buried in rubble, though that can be extended if they have access to food and water.
Oscar Perez hugs his family after reuniting with them three days after an earthquake struck in La Guaira. (AP Photo/Matias Delacroix)
According to the Venezuelan government, 172 people are trapped, 3,238 injured and 3,100 have been left homeless as of Saturday, local time.
Thousands of people are known to be missing.
Electricity has been restored in 60 per cent of affected areas, with telecommunications expected to help reunite separated families.
Rescue workers from around the world have been deployed to Venezuela. (AP Photo: Pedro Mattey)
Rising death toll and damage cost
Just after 6pm on Wednesday, two consecutive earthquakes measuring magnitudes 7.2 and 7.5 reduced parts of northern Venezuela to rubble.
Hitting within 39 seconds of each other, the quakes caused an estimated $US6.7 billion ($9.7b) in damage, according to the UN.
A collapsed building in La Guaira, a coastal city about 30 kilometres north of Caracas on Wednesday, local time. (Reuters: Maxwell Briceno)
The second earthquake was Venezuela’s most powerful in more than a century.
The UN’s International Organization for Migration (IOM) said in a statement “up to 6.76 million people could be affected”, based on population and damage analysis.
Predictive modelling done by the US Geological Survey indicates the death toll will likely rise into the thousands.
Patients lie outside a damaged hospital that had to be evacuated in Catia La Mar. (AP Photo: Pedro Mattey)
More resources needed
Acting President Delcy Rodriguez said her government was mounting a full response during the “critical hours for rescuing people alive”.
Delcy Rodriguez tours a neighbourhood struck by the earthquakes. (Handout / Venezuelan Presidency / AFP)
Ms Rodriguez said in an overnight address on state television that 14,000 military and police members were in La Guaira to patrol and take sanitary measures.
Foreign Ministry official Oliver Blanco said 17 flights carrying more than 1,600 members of rescue teams had also arrived.
“Over the next 24 hours, the arrival of 25 additional flights is expected,”
Mr Blanco said.
But residents say more resources are urgently needed, criticising the official response to the disaster.
Lawyer Ricardo Trias, 73, was trying to obtain a death certificate for his godson Armando Lopez, 54.
Mr Lopez’s body was pulled from the rubble of his building in the coastal town of Caraballeda on Thursday night, and remained at the site.
“We want them to give us the body … we can’t take it, and here it will rot,” Mr Trias said.
“No forensic authority has come.“
In La Guaira just north of the nation’s capital, Nazareth Jimenez sobbed into a loved one’s shoulder as she watched neighbours use hammers and power tools to try to cut through concrete slabs in a pile of rubble.
The building was where her siblings, nephews, nieces and friends were at the time of the earthquake.
“We’re making a call for help to the government and countries across the world,” Ms Jimenez said, pleading for machinery capable of moving collapsed structures.
“There are still people alive in there.“
International aid commitments
On Friday, Venezuelan authorities said 861 volunteers from Mexico, the US, El Salvador, Switzerland, Colombia and beyond were in the country, and more were coming from elsewhere.
The Mexican army’s search-and-rescue team joined the recovery effort. (AP Photo: Matias Delacorix)
The United States said it was deploying two warships, transport planes and helicopters, along with $US150 million ($217 million) in aid, while British Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer said his government has sent £2 million ($3.8 million) in humanitarian aid along with a search-and-rescue team of 68 members, including six specialist search dogs.
Ms Rodriguez said the government was creating a $US200 million reconstruction fund for hospitals and homes damaged by the earthquakes.
The International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC) has launched an Emergency Appeal for 50 million Swiss francs ($90 million) to assist its operations in Venezuela.
The first 17 metric tonnes of humanitarian supplies left the IFRC’s regional humanitarian hub in Panama for Venezuela on Friday.
— with wires
