33 people rescued, thousands still missing after Venezuela quakes

CARACAS - Thirty-three people have been rescued so far this weekend after Venezuela’s devastating twin earthquakes, the country’s interim president said, including several children, while tens of thousands remained unaccounted for with time for finding additional survivors running short.

The death toll from the June 24 twin earthquakes rose above 1,400 as of June 27 as foreign rescue teams poured into coastal La Guaira, the hardest-hit state.

Families and volunteers spent days pulling survivors and bodies from the rubble before the arrival of the more than 1,600 foreign rescue workers, often complaining of scant heavy equipment and a limited official presence, as hundreds of aftershocks deepened damage and kept residents on edge.

The government - headed by interim President Delcy Rodriguez since her predecessor was removed by the US in a January raid - had thanked civilian volunteers ferrying aid to La Guaira, but then heavily tightened access to the road, saying traffic was preventing efficient movement of emergency vehicles and that only accredited people could use the roadway.

Although the government has given a figure of hundreds missing or trapped, just under 50,000 people were listed as unaccounted for on a website promoted by the country’s political opposition on June 28.

The figure is a slight decline from June 27, when 55,000 people were marked as missing.

The US Geological Survey estimated more than 10,000 deaths were possible from the magnitude 7.2 and 7.5 quakes, which would place them among Latin America’s deadliest of the last century.

Vehicles waiting in a queue on June 27 to move forward along the blockaded Caracas–La Guaira highway, north of Caracas, Venezuela. PHOTO: EPA

The clock is ticking for rescuing people still living amid the rubble.

“There exists a window of roughly three days, 72 hours, where the probability afterwards decreases that you can save people alive,” Sebastian Eugster, the leader of the Swiss rescue team, told Reuters on June 27.

The 80-strong team had found multiple people alive in the rubble thanks to alerts from their eight search dogs, but had not been able to pull them out in time to save them, he added.

June 27 marked 72 hours since the quakes.

The Swiss team will jointly define with other teams and local authorities when rescue operations will end, Eugster said, but will remain on the ground to help with other aid work.

The US State Department hailed the rescue of an infant by US rescue crews on June 27, posting a video on X showing helmet-clad rescuers removing the blanket-wrapped and wailing child from the rubble.

Emergency workers carrying a baby rescued from the rubble in the aftermath of earthquakes, in La Guaira, in a screengrab from a video released by the US Department of State. PHOTO: REUTERS

A Colombian rescue team saved an 11-year-old boy, Moises, who had been trapped some 3m deep in rubble, after identifying his location with a scanner, Reuters TV reported.

He was removed on a stretcher with a broken arm, his eyes covered by cloth to protect them from the shock of daylight. His mother and sister were killed.

Mexican rescuers working at a collapsed building in the town of Caraballeda rescued another 11-year-old boy, Rodriguez posted on X late on June 27, showing crews carrying a small figure on a stretcher out of the rubble.

“In these hours each life is hope for Venezuela,” Rodriguez said, as the government also shared a video of a young man being removed from ruins by rescuers.

The government also posted videos of Rodriguez meeting with international rescuers, where she gave the figure of people saved on June 27.

The government has also said more than 3,000 people were injured and a similar figure was living in shelters.

In Caraballeda on June 27, US rescuers worked alongside remaining civilian volunteers, some of whom were searching for their own family members.

Rescuers had originally spray-painted the rubble with the name of the apartment building that used to stand there. By June 27 they had marked debris with coding indicating they believed no living person remained in the ruins.

Pope Leo on June 28 told worshippers gathered for the Angelus prayer in Rome that he wanted “to express my closeness to the Venezuelan sisters and brothers affected by the recent earthquakes” and expressed gratitude to rescue workers.

European Union foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas said on X that the EU had mobilised €5 million (S$7.4 million) in emergency assistance and that its Copernicus satellite system is helping map the damage and direct assistance to the areas most in need.

A senior US official said on June 27 that a funding package worth hundreds of millions of dollars is expected to be announced within the next day or so, in addition to US$150 million (S$194 million) that the Trump administration had already committed.

The disaster could have political consequences for Rodriguez, who has portrayed herself as an agent of change even though she served as vice president under predecessor Nicolas Maduro.

Power throughout the region was gradually returning. Venezuela’s power grid, crippled by years of underinvestment and economic sanctions, regularly experiences problems, leading to daily, hours-long blackouts in some regions. REUTERS