Rumours feed illusions of life under Venezuela quake ruins

CARABALLEDA, Venezuela – The rumour began on July 2: A small child was trapped alive under the earthquake rubble of a building in Venezuela.

By the next day, the story spun into a dispute among residents of the Tahiti building, pitting those believing in a potential rescue against others desperate to dig for bodies of their loved ones.

The Tahiti Residence has highlighted how desperation is fraying nerves of survivors and relatives more than a week after two earthquakes left more than 2,600 dead and caused widespread destruction, with thousands still missing.

Several rescue teams visited the site of the Tahiti on July 2, where the residential block lay in a pile of slabs. After scanning ruins, teams concluded on July 3 there were no more signs of life.

Words of mouth again fuelled hopes of saving someone else and spurred more rescue efforts, even attracting influencers who posted videos on social media from the quake’s epicentre in Caraballeda, in La Guaira state.

But an American rescuer told AFP they deployed dogs and listened with a high-intensity sound detector, without success.

Hours later, a Venezuelan volunteer claimed to have heard screams in the early morning and told AFP that the search dogs could not locate the boy because he was “too deep down”.

Jose Francisco Liendo, who has been looking for the remains of his father and sister inside the Tahiti, said the search went viral on social media as unconfirmed reports of a survivor spread.

“They said supposedly there’s a boy who’s alive, that the boy is breathing, then that the boy is urinating, then that he hit something” to signal, Liendo said.

“They don’t tell the whole truth. I mean, they’re playing with the families’ pain.”

Katherine Lendoiro, who accompanied the family of the missing child, confirmed to AFP on July 3 a Spanish rescue report showed results had been negative.

Aloa Gonzalez has spent night and day by the ruins of the Tahiti, hoping to recover the bodies of her sister and her aunt.

She already buried her parents. But dashed hopes about the recovery of a living child made the search even more unbearable.

“There were several versions regarding the survivors. First, they said they couldn’t reach the people, that there was no way, no way to get through,” she said.

Then, she said, some said that they did not know if it was a boy or a girl, a man or a woman. Some said supposedly there had been a knock, a sound, that there was 70 per cent certainty there was life.

“70 per cent certain? We’re all going to do our best to get that life out,” she said.

From the double earthquake that shook La Guaira and Caracas, 6,462 people have been rescued, the last one on July 2, in what was considered a near-miraculous operation.

Chances of survival diminish considerably after 72 hours.

That rescue of security guard Hernan Gil came after almost eight days under the rubble, but rescuers had made contact with him days earlier and supplied him with water and oxygen through tubes.

The government has said that the deceased will be identified, and interim president Delcy Rodriguez ruled out resorting to mass graves.

There is no official count of missing people so far, although the United Nations estimates that the number could reach 50,000.

La Guaira suffered complete destruction of more than 170 buildings.

For Gonzalez, she would have been happy to see the rescue of a boy after the death of her parents, and while still trying to recover her sister’s body.

“If they rescued the boy, I would be the happiest person in the world,” she said.

“But then all the rescuers left.” AFP