On Sunday, rescue teams intensified their search for additional survivors of the two powerful earthquakes that struck Venezuela earlier in the week, each sign of life offering a brief reprieve in the daunting effort to locate the tens of thousands still unaccounted for.
The death toll from the twin earthquakes that struck on Wednesday has risen to nearly 1,500, as international rescue personnel have descended upon La Guaira, the region most severely affected, in a nation grappling with a prolonged political and economic crisis.
Dozens of structures collapsed into piles of sand and rubble in the coastal state situated approximately 40 kilometres north of Caracas.
‘Rescue and recovery operations are continuing. Today (Sunday) we have already recovered survivors alive, and therefore operations will not be halted. We never lose hope,’ interim President Delcy Rodriguez stated, adding that a presidential commission has been convened to assess the habitability of affected buildings.
Standing alongside several of her ministers, Rodriguez announced that school classes would remain suspended for an additional week and that electricity service in La Guaira had been restored to 75 percent.
The government, which has been led by Rodriguez since her predecessor was removed in a January raid conducted by the United States, initially expressed gratitude toward civilian volunteers delivering aid to La Guaira but subsequently restricted road access, citing the need to prioritize efficient movement of emergency vehicles.
Earlier, Jorge Rodriguez, the acting president’s brother and head of the National Assembly, reported that the death toll had increased by 20 on Sunday, reaching 1,450. He also noted that 3,150 individuals remained injured, 12,721 had been displaced, and 774 buildings had collapsed.
‘We are in critical, crucial hours to continue rescuing lives and to establish shelters for those who have lost their homes or are unable, for any reason, to return to their residences,’ he said.
Families and volunteers spent days combing through the rubble to extract survivors and victims before more than 2,600 foreign rescue workers arrived, frequently lamenting the scarcity of heavy equipment and limited official support, while hundreds of aftershocks continued to deepen damage and kept residents on edge.
Thus far this weekend, the government reported that at least 33 individuals had been rescued by Saturday evening, including several children, while tens of thousands remain unaccounted for.
On Sunday, a father and his son were rescued alive from the rubble of a collapsed building as rescue workers raced against the clock to locate additional survivors.
Cover image: © France 24 
Limited time to find survivors
The US Geological Survey estimated that more than 10,000 deaths could result from the magnitude 7.2 and 7.5 quakes, ranking them among the deadliest events in Latin America’s recent history.
‘There is a roughly three‑day window—about 72 hours—during which the likelihood of rescuing people alive diminishes,’ said Sebastian Eugster, leader of the Swiss rescue contingent.
The 80‑member team has located several survivors in the rubble, triggered by alerts from their eight search dogs, but had been unable to extract them in time to save them, he added.
Saturday evening marked the passage of 72 hours since the quakes occurred.
Rescued children
The US State Department praised the rescue of an infant by American rescue teams on Saturday, publishing a video on X that shows helmet‑clad rescuers extracting a blanket‑wrapped, crying child from the rubble.
A Colombian rescue team also saved an 11‑year‑old boy named Moisés, who had been trapped approximately three metres deep in rubble, after locating him with a scanner, according to Reuters TV.
He was removed on a stretcher with a broken arm, his eyes covered with cloth to shield them from the shock of daylight; his mother and sister had been killed.
Mexican rescuers in the town of Caraballeda rescued another 11‑year‑old boy, as documented by Rodriguez on X late Saturday, showing crews carrying a small figure on a stretcher out of the rubble.
A senior US official stated on Saturday that a funding package valued at hundreds of millions of dollars is expected to be announced within the coming day or so, building on the $150 million already committed by the Trump administration.
Opposition leader and Nobel Peace Prize laureate Maria Corina Machado announced on Sunday her intention to return to Venezuela, where she has been in hiding since the 2024 presidential election—widely regarded by international observers as won by the opposition—until she left in December to accept her prize.
A White House official informed Reuters on Saturday that Machado’s desire to return home is frustrating senior officials in Washington, who contend that it is too soon after the disaster.
Venezuela’s largest refinery, the 645,000‑barrel‑per‑day Amuay facility, ceased operations on Sunday after a major power outage struck the western Falcon state, according to workers at the site.
(FRANCE 24 with Reuters)
