After surviving earthquakes, a family in Venezuela seeks a new beginning far from ground zero

MARACAIBO, Venezuela, July 29 - Weeks after the twin earthquakes that devastated Venezuela's central coast, Adriana Aponte and her family joined a growing exodus of survivors fleeing to poorer regions to escape the trauma of the disaster.

"The fear will always be there, haunting you," said Aponte, a 26-year-old mother of three who relocated from hard-hit La Guaira to the oil-producing city of Maracaibo. "Sometimes you’d like to forget."

The June 24 double-quake with magnitudes of 7.2 and 7.5 killed at least 5,500 people and forced some 23,800 others into makeshift tent camps.

The disaster also triggered internal displacement, pushing survivors from the ruined coastal region into precarious new lives in economically depressed western states such as Zulia, home to Maracaibo.

Aponte said her family chose to leave La Guaira because they wanted to be in a city free from the fear of constant aftershocks.

The quakes reduced hundreds of buildings and homes to rubble in the area. Aponte said her own home did not collapse completely, but a wall in the bedroom came down, splitting it in half.

Upon deciding to leave their home, a relative gave them 50,000 bolivars (about $67) to pay for the trip to Maracaibo, where Aponte has relatives.

"I feel safe here," Aponte told Reuters in the small living room of her two-story home, a modest brick structure with a simple zinc roof surrounded by weeds and rubbish that the family is now cleaning away.

They hope it is temporary while waiting for the government to provide permanent housing.

Aponte said the sense of safety for her and her children - ages 1, 4 and 10 - in Maracaibo is reassuring, but she feels some regret.

"Part of me feels bad because my dad and my sisters are still back in La Guaira," she said. REUTERS