Three days after back-to-back powerful earthquakes of magnitude 7.2 and 7.5 rocked northern Venezuela, exhausted rescue teams and civilian volunteers are locked in a frantic race against time to pull survivors from the ruins of collapsed buildings across the hardest-hit coastal state of La Guaira. Even as the rising death toll brings crushing grief to hundreds of families, the rare, dramatic rescues that have emerged from the rubble have kept a flicker of hope alive for those still waiting for news of missing loved ones.
On Friday, the most striking moment of rescue came in Catia La Mar, when Daniel Cordero, with blood on his face, was pulled out from under a fallen building. Surrounded by emergency workers who guided him onto a stretcher, Cordero’s survival came as a much-needed boost to morale for search teams and grieving communities alike, following the devastating tremors that struck Wednesday. His rescue, alongside that of a 4-year-old child and an injured elderly man who was pulled alive to cheering crowds, reminded searchers that miracles remain possible even in the disaster’s third day.
But for far too many families, the news coming out of the rubble has been unrelentingly tragic. As of Saturday, Venezuelan government officials confirmed the death toll has climbed to at least 1,430, with thousands more injured and tens of thousands still unaccounted for. Authorities expect the number of fatalities to continue rising as search crews clear more debris.
In La Guaira, the region that bore the brunt of the earthquakes’ destruction, stories of loss have become a daily occurrence. Daritza Polo confirmed her mother’s death on Friday, saying simply, “I have no words,” as she processed her grief. For the Rojas family, the pain came when 3-year-old Leyder and 10-year-old Leymar Rojas were pulled from the rubble wrapped in a funeral sheet. Their mother collapsed in anguish, fainting as onlookers tried to steady her, while their uncle Ramón Eduardo fought back tears speaking to reporters. “It’s horrible, we have seen way too much,” he said. Their 4-year-old brother Adrián survived the collapse, but “not all of them, we could not get them,” Eduardo added.
Search operations continued through Saturday, led largely by local civilians who have worked nonstop under the scorching tropical sun, with a growing contingent of international rescue teams arriving to reinforce the effort. Emergency responders hold that the first 48 to 72 hours after a disaster are the most critical window for rescuing people alive, though survival windows can stretch longer if trapped people have access to clean water and food.
Across La Guaira, many families remain in limbo, clinging to the fragile hope that their missing relatives will be the next to be pulled alive from the rubble. For Noribel Mendoza, who lived in a collapsed La Guaira building with her two adult sons, 21-year-old Andrés David and 19-year-old Ángel Eduardo, the family has had no word since the earthquakes struck. Ángela Molina Castro, the boys’ aunt, told reporters by phone from her home in Anzoátegui State that, “We don’t know if they were there, they weren’t there, if they’re in the hospital or a clinic, still nothing.” One of the boys’ aunts has camped outside the collapsed building waiting for updates, Molina Castro said, but no professional rescue teams have reached the site yet. Neighbors have tried to move heavy debris by hand, but much of the wreckage is too large for civilian crews to move on their own. After a friend and his pregnant wife were confirmed dead earlier this week, the family holds out hope their nephews’ story will be different. “It’s a tragedy that I’m living for the first time in my life,” Molina Castro said.
Flor María González, who has waited for news since Wednesday, shares that same fragile hope. Her 33-year-old daughter Dilinyer and three grandchildren, ages 6, 8, and 10, were in their collapsed La Guaira apartment building when the earthquakes hit. González had just returned to her home in Maracaibo, in western Venezuela, after a visit to her daughters near Caracas when the tremors struck, and she has watched the search unfold from afar. Her other daughter is camped outside the rubble, waiting for any update. “We still have faith,” González said.