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Three days after back-to-back powerful 7.2 and 7.5-magnitude earthquakes devastated northern Venezuela, the race against time to pull trapped survivors from the rubble of flattened homes and apartment blocks is growing exponentially more desperate. As hope for finding more people alive fades, the disaster has left a broken nation grappling with overwhelming human loss, limited government rescue capacity, and growing chaos in the hardest-hit zone centered on La Guaira, just north of the capital Caracas.

By Friday evening, Venezuelan authorities announced a full access restriction to La Guaira, the epicenter of the destruction, after unregulated traffic and chaotic crowds began to obstruct ongoing search-and-rescue operations. Under the new order, all people seeking entry to the area must first obtain official permits, though government officials have released little to no detail on who will qualify for access.

As of midday Friday, official counts placed the confirmed death toll from Wednesday’s twin quakes at more than 920, with over 3,300 people injured and 243 survivors pulled from rubble so far. Independent digital tracking databases list more than 51,000 people as unaccounted for, a figure that includes many displaced residents cut off from communication by collapsed cellphone infrastructure, as well as duplicate missing person reports. Officials have warned that the final death toll will almost certainly rise as search teams clear more debris.

With rescue resources stretched thin across the devastated region, many Venezuelan families have launched their own search efforts for missing loved ones, reporting almost no presence of official state rescue teams in the most heavily damaged zones — a stark contrast to the government’s public claims of a robust, coordinated response. Aid organizations universally recognize the first 48 to 72 hours after a major seismic event as the most critical window for rescuing people alive, though survival can be extended for trapped people with access to clean water and food.

“Each person saved is a miracle,” said Jorge Rodríguez, president of Venezuela’s National Assembly. “We are not going to hide absolutely anything about the magnitude of this tragedy.”

In La Guaira, the scope of grief and urgency is impossible to miss. Nazareth Jimenez collapsed into the shoulder of a family member, sobbing as local neighbors used hand tools and borrowed power saws to cut through thick concrete slabs of what was once a multi-story apartment building, now reduced to a jagged mountain of rubble. Inside were her siblings, nieces, nephews, and close friends, and she waited in agony for any sign of life. “My God, how are we going to get them out of there?” she murmured. Desperate for heavy machinery to move collapsed concrete and steel, she made a public plea: “We’re making a call for help to the government and countries across the world. There are still people alive in there.”

Acting President Delcy Rodríguez, who took office in January after the United States supported the capture and removal of former President Nicolás Maduro, said the Venezuelan government was carrying out a full-scale response during these “critical hours for rescuing people alive.” Government forces have distributed basic food and water to displaced survivors in La Guaira, and Rodríguez confirmed the state has militarized the area, welcomed international rescue teams and humanitarian aid, and that additional support is en route. Still, many local residents say the aid and resources deployed so far are only a tiny fraction of what the devastated region needs.

The massive disaster represents one of the most severe tests of Rodríguez’s acting administration, which already faces the headwinds of a decade-long national economic crisis and widespread public skepticism over the legitimacy of the ruling political movement.

The International Organization for Migration estimates that up to 6.76 million people across the region have been affected by the quakes, with nearly 2 million of those in the capital Caracas alone. Seismology experts note the destruction was amplified by two key factors: the quakes’ shallow depth and their rapid succession, which left little time for survivors to evacuate unstable structures. Loyce Pace, regional director for the International Red Cross in the Americas, said “people are still terrified to reenter what were their homes,” and thousands of displaced residents have taken to sleeping on sidewalks and in open public spaces out of fear of aftershocks and further building collapses.

For many families, the loss is unfathomable. Walking through the rubble that still holds the bodies of two of his children, Omar Reyes shared that around 20 members of his extended family were killed in the disaster. “I’ve been left alone in this life,” he said. In the nearby city of Maiquetia, residents lined up for hours outside the few operating stores and pharmacies, which were only letting customers enter one at a time to avoid overcrowding. At one point, a desperate woman threw herself on top of a package of diapers in the crowd, curling her body around it to protect the supply for her child.

In Catia La Mar, adjacent to Venezuela’s main international airport, some desperate residents have been seen moving basic supplies including toilet paper and food from damaged or abandoned stores, and crowds once swarmed a civilian pickup truck distributing free bread and water before a soldier intervened to restore order. The parking lot of a local pharmacy has been converted into a makeshift displacement camp, with residents using tarps, hammocks, and donated tents for shelter.

Twenty-eight-year-old Yuleidy Cadenas has stood across the street from a collapsed public housing building for days, holding out hope that her son, mother, and brother will be pulled out alive. She fled barefoot from another collapsing building on the day of the quakes, only to return and find her mother’s 12-story apartment tower had completely flattened. “I got on top of the rubble and told them to yell back, and nobody did, not my brother, nor my son or my mother,” Cadenas said.

Disruptions from unregulated traffic and groups of motorcyclists have repeatedly hampered search efforts. Mexican rescue teams and volunteer first responders have repeatedly asked for silence to listen for faint signs of life under rubble, but civilian and uniformed bikers have continued honking horns and revving engines, leaving first responders frustrated.

As the critical 72-hour window closes, international aid has begun arriving in the country. Venezuelan authorities confirmed Friday that 861 rescue volunteers from Mexico, the United States, El Salvador, Switzerland, Colombia and other nations are already on the ground, with more teams en route from other countries. Acting President Rodríguez said she spoke with U.S. President Donald Trump and Secretary of State Marco Rubio on Friday, and both reaffirmed the United States’ commitment to sending additional rescue teams and heavy aid equipment to support the response effort.

AP correspondent Julia Janetsky reported from Mexico City, with additional contributions from AP journalists Clara Preve in Buenos Aires, Argentina, and Dánica Coto in San Juan, Puerto Rico.

In a devastating geological event that has shaken Venezuela to its core, two massive back-to-back earthquakes struck the nation’s northern regions last Wednesday, leaving a trail of death, destruction, and urgent humanitarian need that has drawn a coordinated global response. The second of the two tremors registered a magnitude of 7.5, marking one of the most powerful seismic events to hit the South American country in more than a century.

Official government updates confirm the disaster has already claimed at least 920 lives, left 3,360 people injured, and left at least 172 individuals still trapped beneath collapsed infrastructure, with hundreds more reported missing. Authorities warn the final death toll is expected to climb as rescue teams work to clear rubble and reach cut-off areas. The coastal state of La Guaira, located just north of the capital Caracas and home to Venezuela’s primary international airport and one of its two largest commercial ports, has borne the brunt of the destruction.

For dozens of families across the hardest-hit region, every passing minute brings a agonizing mix of hope and despair. Natacha Diaz, a resident of La Guaira, is among those clinging to faith as she waits for news of her two daughters, ages 22 and 23, who were working as manicurists inside a collapsed local shopping mall when the quakes hit. “They were with their friends. I just want them to be found. I have faith and hope that they are there,” Diaz told the BBC. “I just want them back with me. They are all I have, please.”

Dozens of structures across northern Venezuela have been reduced to rubble, including multiple hospitals, shopping centers, and residential buildings, with more than 1,000 additional critical infrastructure sites sustaining major damage. Surviving medical facilities have been stretched far beyond capacity, treating injured patients in makeshift outdoor care tents. Long before the disaster struck, Venezuela’s decades-long economic crisis and chronic underinvestment had left the country’s healthcare system severely under-resourced, a gap that has been thrown into sharp relief by the earthquake emergency. “All our hospitals lack supplies, lack medicines, we are not able to provide medical attention to our people in a normal day,” Dr. Pedro Javier Fernandez told the BBC. “Now with this tragedy, the emergency is even bigger and it’s more difficult to face than in other countries.”

Initial rescue efforts were hampered by broken communications links, damaged and blocked roadways, and a critical shortage of heavy equipment and supplies, forcing many first responders and civilian volunteers to dig through debris with their bare hands in a race to pull survivors out. In recent days, hundreds of international search-and-rescue teams have arrived in the country to bolster local efforts, with more personnel and aid en route. A British military flight carrying specialist rescue teams from 14 UK fire services, search dogs, and drone detection equipment departed from RAF Brize Norton on Friday, joining teams already deployed from the United States, the Netherlands, Mexico, and Switzerland. The U.S. has also committed $150 million in humanitarian aid, alongside deploying warships and cargo planes to support relief operations.

Jan Egeland, secretary general of the Norwegian Refugee Council, said international teams on the ground have already witnessed “horrific damage” across the affected regions, noting that Venezuela’s pre-existing crumbling infrastructure left the nation uniquely vulnerable to such a disaster. “Venezuela was ill-prepared and vulnerable in an emergency situation because of its already crumbling infrastructure following decades of underinvestment,” Egeland told the BBC.

Amid the widespread grief and destruction, small moments of hope have lifted morale across the country. In one widely broadcast story on state television, three young siblings were pulled alive from the rubble of a collapsed building in La Guaira, emerging covered in dust after being trapped for days. “Come here, my child, come here,” a rescuer called out to the first child, followed by a young girl, and then the third sibling, who emerged sobbing but alive.

The disaster has also already claimed notable victims, including Andrea, the wife of Venezuelan footballer Héctor Bello, who died while shielding and saving their toddler daughter during the collapse. “I’ll tell her the story of how you saved her, my love – how you gave your own life for our daughter, how you were a brave woman who never abandoned her, even as you took your last breaths,” Bello wrote in an emotional Instagram post. Foreign casualties have also been confirmed: one Portuguese national, two Brazilian citizens, and four Spanish nationals are among the dead, while 106 Spanish citizens remain unaccounted for, per Spanish foreign ministry reports.

Beyond La Guaira, multiple other states across northern Venezuela have felt the impact of the disaster, with the capital Caracas seeing heavy damage in the upscale neighborhoods of Los Palos Grandes and Altamira. More than 214 aftershocks have been recorded since the initial twin quakes, with most concentrated along the northern coastline spanning La Guaira, Aragua, Carabobo, and Falcón.

The earthquake comes at a moment of extreme political uncertainty for Venezuela. Less than six months ago, long-time leftist leader Nicolás Maduro, who had governed the country since 2013, was seized by U.S. forces in Caracas and extradited to New York to face federal drug trafficking charges. Maduro’s ally, former vice president Delcy Rodríguez, stepped into the role of acting president, a move that has been contested by opposition supporters who had expected the U.S. to install opposition leader María Corina Machado to lead the interim government.

Venezuelan opposition leader Leopoldo Lopez, who lives in exile in Spain, described the scale of the devastation as “huge” and said the population remains in “shock.” He criticized the interim government’s inability to mount a timely, large-scale rescue response, but praised the outpouring of grassroots support from Venezuelan civil society. The United Nations has pledged to coordinate the international humanitarian response, with the UN’s humanitarian chief Tom Fletcher saying, “I want people to know in Venezuela that help is coming.”

A catastrophic natural disaster has left Venezuela reeling, after two back-to-back powerful earthquakes struck the South American nation earlier this week, pushing the confirmed death toll close to 1,000 and triggering a massive international humanitarian response. On Friday evening, the United Kingdom launched its own contribution to the relief effort, dispatching a specialized search-and-rescue detachment that departed from RAF Brize Norton bound for the disaster zone.

The Royal Air Force flight carries 61 personnel alongside purpose-built rescue equipment that includes search sniffer dogs and aerial drone technology to aid in locating survivors trapped beneath collapsed structures. Coordinated by the Merseyside Fire and Rescue Service, the UK team draws together experienced firefighters, disaster response experts, medical personnel, humanitarian workers, and security specialists from across the country, all tasked with supporting ongoing search operations.

Alongside the deployment of on-the-ground rescue resources, the British government has committed £2 million in dedicated humanitarian funding to address critical needs across the most affected regions. The 7.2 and 7.5 magnitude quakes struck just seconds apart on Wednesday, with their epicenter located approximately 160 kilometers west of Venezuela’s capital, Caracas. The powerful tremors displaced tens of thousands of residents, levelled thousands of structures, and left a growing number of people unaccounted for. As of 9:00 PM BST Friday, a public registry tracking missing persons recorded more than 52,000 people that remain out of contact with relatives.

Local medical infrastructure has been stretched to breaking point in the hardest-hit regions, with local hospitals overwhelmed by an influx of injured patients and facing crippling shortages of life-saving supplies. Hundreds of international aid workers have already arrived or are en route to Venezuela to join the search for any remaining survivors trapped in rubble. On Friday, Venezuelan Acting President Delcy Rodríguez confirmed that authorities had recorded 215 aftershocks in the days since the initial major quakes, adding ongoing risk to relief teams and displaced residents. A national state of emergency has been declared across the affected regions, and all major transportation links including airports, rail lines, and road transport networks have been suspended following the disaster. Thousands of people have been left homeless, creating urgent unmet demand for food, water, shelter, and emergency medical supplies.

In a statement released alongside the announcement of the UK response, Prime Minister Keir Starmer expressed his solidarity with the Venezuelan people. “My thoughts are with the people of Venezuela following this week’s devastating earthquakes,” Starmer said. “The UK stands in solidarity with all those affected, particularly those who have lost loved ones, homes and livelihoods.”

CARACAS, Venezuela — In the wake of two massive, near-simultaneous earthquakes that devastated northern Venezuela this week, thousands of residents who suddenly lost their homes are now camping in public spaces, their futures hanging in the balance as rescue teams race to find survivors amid a growing death toll.

On Wednesday evening, a 7.2-magnitude quake and a 7.5-magnitude tremor struck just 39 seconds apart, toppling structures across Caracas and neighboring regions, damaging hundreds of residential buildings. The confirmed death count already numbers in the hundreds, and officials expect that number to climb as search-and-rescue operations continue across the hardest-hit northern coastal areas. As of the latest update, at least 920 people have been killed and more than 3,300 injured, with thousands still reported missing.

For the Quintero family, the quakes turned a stable apartment life into makeshift nomadism. The entire family now clusters around their small, worn sedan, with children taking the passenger seats, their pet parakeet Paquito and several pet turtles housed in the trunk. Francisco Quintero, a professional musician, says the whole family spends each night searching for a spot to sleep near the vehicle, waiting for official guidance on long-term housing support.

Thousands of displaced Venezuelans have flooded into city parks, public plazas, and even the shoulders of blocked highways, scrambling for open space to set up temporary shelter. This disaster comes as Venezuela already grapples with decades of economic collapse, leaving more than half of its 30 million people in extreme poverty, with nearly 8 million already reliant on humanitarian aid before the earthquakes struck.

In Guaira, the hardest-hit state just north of Caracas, displaced families have staked out claims to space on a dusty local baseball field, stretching out bedsheets to mark their territory, with all their possessions stuffed into thin plastic bags. Others have taken shelter under palm fronds. Among them is Alexandra Martínez, a 35-year-old mother of two, who wept as she described the total loss of her apartment: ‘The walls, the kitchen, everything, are destroyed. It split right down the middle.’

Across Caracas, identical scenes of displacement play out. Desiré Gil, a 37-year-old street vendor who sells mangos and other small goods, now lives with her four children on a small grassy public plaza. Her 6-month-pregnant daughter was turned away from a local hospital Thursday after experiencing contractions, as a section of the facility’s maternity ward collapsed, and the building is already overflowing with patients transferred from other damaged medical centers. Though Gil’s building did not fully collapse, large sections of its structure are crumbling, and she refuses to return, terrified of a secondary collapse in aftershocks. ‘We have nowhere to live,’ Gil said. ‘This is the only option we have for the moment.’

Like thousands of other displaced residents, Gil and her family are waiting for Venezuela’s civil protection agency to inspect damaged structures and rule on whether they are safe to reoccupy. But there is no clear timeline for when these inspections will begin, as government resources remain focused on search and rescue operations across the affected region. The Ministry of Education has announced that some school buildings will be converted into emergency shelters, but it has not released details on how many facilities will be repurposed or when they will open. For now, Gil says her family will remain on the grassy plaza ‘until the government gives us an answer.’

Near the Gil family’s camp, other displaced residents use backpacks as pillows and prop up colorful beach umbrellas for shade from the tropical sun, while rescue and military helicopters buzz constantly overhead on their way to disaster zones.

Civil engineering experts say the widespread structural collapse is no surprise, due to outdated building codes that left most of Caracas’s housing stock seismically vulnerable. José Rangel, a university professor and practicing civil engineer, explained that over half of Caracas’s buildings were constructed before 1982, when the national government first adopted a modern construction code tailored for earthquake-prone seismic zones. ‘Everything that we’ve built before that year is seismically vulnerable,’ Rangel told state broadcaster Venezolana de Televisión.

Rangel noted that he and other engineering experts had already been working on seismic retrofitting plans and prioritizing infrastructure assessments for schools, hospitals, and bridges before the quakes hit. He called on the government to implement stricter building standards for reconstruction, and warned that it will take weeks to complete inspections and clear buildings for reentry. ‘It’s a process that lies ahead,’ Rangel said. ‘Right now, the most important issue is rescuing people.’ He urged independent engineers and architects to volunteer for the upcoming inspection effort, adding that investigating the root causes of building collapses is critical to avoiding similar damage in future seismic events: ‘The causes of the collapse must be determined. It’s how we learn lessons after an earthquake.’

Magaly Noguera and her family are among those waiting anxiously for inspections. Their high-rise apartment building sustained heavy damage, and Noguera recalled the terror of the quake, when she, her son, his wife, and 3-year-old grandchild huddled together under a kitchen door frame before they could flee down the stairs to safety. ‘That day, the descent seemed endless to me,’ she said. ‘I don’t want to be in my house.’ The family now sleeps outdoors near a government building, surrounded by dozens of other households in the same situation.

Down the street, the scope of the displacement is on full display: a man carried a full-size mattress on his left shoulder, his partner hauled multiple pillows under her right arm, and their small child walked tucked between them, heading toward an uncertain temporary shelter. The disaster has added a devastating new layer of crisis to a country already grappling with one of the worst humanitarian emergencies in the Western Hemisphere, leaving thousands of families to wonder how long they will remain without stable housing.